I have an onboard 3Com 3C940 on my Abit KV8-MAX3. I'm using a Gentoo patched kernel version 2.6.19-gentoo-r5. I have tried both the the skge and sk98lin kernel modules, and both appear to work at first. The problem is that once i bring the interface up using either module with ifconfig specifically:

/sbin/ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.109 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.2.255 up

The interface then works normally for a minute or two (~60 packets worth) and suddenly dies. By dies, i mean that the card no longer receives packets, and every packet sent is reported as an error by the interface on the other machine. Nothing pertinent is in dmesg aside from the line that states the module has loaded and that the card is in 100MBit mode.

I'm using a crossover cable to connect the ethernet card to another machine. The interface in the other machine appears to work flawlessly (it's a DEC-Tulip 10/100 card)

So basically does anybody think that the problem is that one card is Gigabit and the other is 10/100. (despite that the 3Com card is running in 100MBit mode)? Should i drop the money for a gigabit card in my other machine? Maybe i should put a 100MBit card on the KV8 (although it is not my intention to use 100MBit forever). Is there some other driver that i should be using? Has anybody else even had this problem? Any other ideas?

i appreciate any help that anybody could give me,
thanks.