I have a 3c905B TX PCI [Cyclone] NIC and am running Slackware 9.0. It dosn't work. Through my own work and the help of others on these forums, we have concluded that the bare.i kernel does not support it, so I have to compile a kernel that does.

The problem is that the source only has 509 drivers. Through reading documentation and going through config files, I think my card is compatable with this driver, but I'm not sure. Can someone in the know confirm this before I get myself into an endevor?

I think you want the vortex driver (CONFIG_VORTEX) under

Network device support -> Ethernet (10 or 100MBit) -> 3COM cardss -> 3c590/3c900 series

From /usr/src/linux/Documentation/networking/vortex.txt:

Thank you.

Did you have any Problems with 3c905B-TX Fast Etherlink XL PCI?

I am using Slackware 8.1 with Kernel 2.4.22 (gcc version 3.2.3) and I have an old 10baseT-Hub.

And that happend to me after I plugged it into my PC:

1.) it conflicts with the other PCI-NetCards (D-Link DFE-530TX and Allnet RTL-8139C) so that they were invisible even when I do an "ifconfig -a"; only the old ISA-Card was detected proberly. So I removed D-Link and Allnet.

2.) Then booted Knoppix-Linux 3.4. 3c905B-TX was detected proberly, but when I unplugged the network cable from 3c905B-TX and plugged it in again, it did not reconnect. The light did not turn on again. So I had to do an "ifconfig eth0 down" and "ifconfig eth0 up"; then it works. But

3.) I had about 15% packet loss when I do a ping from another computer to the 3c509B-TX (without unplugging cable!); after a few seconds the ping suspended and then continues and that happend about every fifteen pings.



Did you use any special module options when you do "modprobe 3c59x ..."?


I found a lot of messages where people had problems with Kernel 2.2.x in 1998, but does anyone has such problems nowadays? Or is my card damaged? (It doesn't look so.) Or is there something wrong in my config?


### /etc/modules.conf ###

# Allnet RTL-8139C:
alias eth0 8139too

# D-Link DFE-530TX:
alias eth1 via-rhine

# 3com netcard 3c905B-TX Fast Etherlink XL PCI
alias eth2 3c59x

# 3com netcard (ISA)
alias eth3 3c509
options 3c509 irq=3

post-install 8139too modprobe via-rhine
post-install via-rhine modprobe 3c59x
post-install 3c59x modprobe 3c509
post-install 3c509 modprobe 8390

# sound card
alias char-major-14 cs4232
post-install cs4232 modprobe "-k" opl3
options cs4232 io=0x534 irq=5 dma=0 dma2=1 mpuio=0x330 mpuirq=9
options opl3 io=0x388



Any ideas?