3C905B -- EEPROM (i blive so) problem

3C905B -- EEPROM (i blive so) problem

[L. K.]

Hi,

I have a 3COM 3C905B ethernet card that has been hit by a power outage for
aprox. 0.5 sec.  Now, the kernel does not recongnize the card
anymore. When I do lspci, I see 3COM Ethernet controller, type unknown
0xffffff (rev 3x). The bios reports the card as an ethernet card at system
boot-up. I run the diagnostic program for 3com cards from Donald Becker
and all the card registers are 0000 and FFFF. I do belive something
happened to the eeprom of the card. I would like to know if I can
overwrite-it with a new one so that I can make my ethernet card work
again.


Thank you,

Eugen

Re: 3C905B -- EEPROM (i blive so) problem

[Bogdan Costescu]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, L. K. wrote:

> I have a 3COM 3C905B ethernet card that has been hit by a power outage for
> aprox. 0.5 sec.

What do you mean by "power outage" ? If you mean cutting the power, this
is not a serious reason for EEPROM damages, unless you were modifying it
at that moment.

> I do belive something happened to the eeprom of the card. I would like
> to know if I can overwrite-it with a new one so that I can make my
> ethernet card work again.

Maybe 3Com's DOS-based tool (3c90xcfg.exe) can help.

In order to re-write the EEPROM, you need to use vortex-diag; I think that
you need to hack it a bit as the EEPROM writting code is not enabled. But
most important is that you need a good EEPROM image to write; if you have
another similar card, you can use vortex-diag to dump the EEPROM, then
change the MAC address (if you put both cards on the same network
segment). If you don't have a similar card... you have to download the
card's documentation from 3Com and build your own EEPROM image based on
what you know about your card's capabilities - having an EEPROM image from
a different card might screw things up badly.

If you decide to go the last way, maybe I can help with some
interpretation of the docs - please e-mail me in private.

Sincerely,

Bogdan Costescu

IWR - Interdisziplinaeres Zentrum fuer Wissenschaftliches Rechnen
Universitaet Heidelberg, INF 368, D-69120 Heidelberg, GERMANY
Telephone: +49 6221 54 8869, Telefax: +49 6221 54 8868
E-mail: Bogdan.Costescu@IWR.Uni-Heidelberg.De