Trying to get toshiba 330cds laptop running slackware 8.1 to use a cheap realtek 8180L pcmcia card. When trying to insmod the driver for the card it does not recognize as the card being there. Also it appears I have problems with my PCMCIA settings but I am not 100% sure. Here are the dmesg logs:

------ Start of dmesg ------

Linux PCMCIA Card Services 3.1.33
kernel build: 2.4.18 #1 Wed May 8 13:51:37 PDT 2002
options: [pci] [cardbus]
Intel ISA/PCI/CardBus PCIC probe:
Toshiba ToPIC95-B rev 07 PCI to Cardbus at slot 00:13, mem 0x10000000
host opts [0]: [slot 0xd0] [ccr 0x11] [cdr 0x86] [rcr 0x02] [pci irq 11] [lat 168/176] [bus 20/20]
host opts [1]: [slot 0xd0] [ccr 0x21] [cdr 0x86] [rcr 0x02] [pci irq 11] [lat 168x176] [bus 21/21]
ISA irqs (default) = 3,4,5,7,9,10 PCI status changes
cs: cb_alloc(bus 20): vendor 0x10ec, device 0x8180


******** RTL8180 Wireless Lan Driver 2003-06-11 loaded********
PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device .
PCI: Setting latency timer of device to 64
RTL8180: : regiou #0 not a PIO resource, aborting
unregister_netdevice: device wlan%d/c1e13c00 never was registered
RTL8180: wlan driver load failed
rtl8180: No devices found, RTL8180 Wireles Lan Driver 2003-06-11 unregistered

---- END OF dmesg -----


Any possible Ideas to what the problem might be? I have three settings in my bios for my pcmcia slot...either Auto, PCIC compatable, or CARDBUS/16bit...I have tried all three but what should it be set on? I have been plugging away at this for 3 days now...with no better results...please someone help!

Massah

First, set your pcic for "cardbus/16bit", this should eliminate the "no irq known interrupt pin A..." error, which you really need to fix before proceeding. If, after you change that and the irq error is gone, you still get "no such device", you can be sure the device is not present, meaning you need to try a different module for this device.

If this wireless card is 32bit/cardbus, it would be good to see the relevant section of the output of lspci -vv, if it's 16bit, it would be good to see cardctl ident.

ok...fixed the no IRQ problem...here is the output from cardctl ident:

Socket 0:
no product info available
PCI id: 0x10ec, 0x8180
Socket 1:
no product info available



I have also just installed the newest pcmcia build 3.2.5...no difference...i did set my pcic to cardbus/16bit in the bios. Any more suggestions? This is an Xterrasys 802.11b card with the realtek 8180L chipset...ive tried drivers from realtek...and ones from the place where i bought the card...same thing...ive been hammering away at this for 3 days to no avail

Massah

actually the irq thing hasen't disappered yet... here is what it says now in dmesg:

---- start Dmesg -----

rtl8180: No devices found, RTL8180 Wireless Lan Driver 2003-06-11 unregistered
VFS: Disk change detected on device fd(2,0)
cs: cb_free(bus 20)
unloading PCMCIA Card Services
Linux PCMCIA Card Services 3.2.5
kernel build: 2.4.18 unknown
options: [pci] [cardbus] [apm] [pnp]
PnP: PNP BIOS installation structure at 0xc00f8e30
PnP: PNP BIOS version 1.0, entry at f0000:90b4, dseg at 0
Intel ISA/PCI/CardBus PCIC probe:
Toshiba ToPIC95-B rev 07 PCI-to-CardBus at slot 00:13, mem 0x10000000
host opts [0]: [slot 0xd0] [ccr 0x11] [cdr 0x86] [rcr 0x02] [pci irq 11] [lat 168/176] [bus 20/20]
host opts [1]: [slot 0xd0] [ccr 0x21] [cdr 0x86] [rcr 0x02] [pci irq 11] [lat 168/176] [bus 21/21]
ISA irqs (default) = 3,9,10 PCI status changes
cs: cb_alloc(bus 20): vendor 0x10ec, device 0x8180


******** RTL8180 Wireless Lan Driver 2003-06-11 loaded********
PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device . Please try using pci=biosirq.
PCI: Setting latency timer of device to 64
RTL8180: : region #0 not a PIO resource, aborting
unregister_netdevice: device wlan%d/c0c3c400 never was registered
RTL8180: wlan driver load failed
rtl8180: No devices found, RTL8180 Wireless Lan Driver 2003-06-11 unregistered

----- END

It's been my experience that until that "no irq known" error is gone, the device isn't going to function. If you've set the pcic and still get that error, well, I just don't know.

ok...another question...what if this card is a 32bit card? would it still work on a 16bit system(i think not but who knows...)...but this card does work in windows 98 on the same laptop.

if it's 32 bit, with the card inserted, something will show up on an lspci -vv call, even with no driver loaded, what does that call show you, should be a section beginning with "ethernet controller" or similar.

it says:

pcilib: Cannot open /proc/bus/pci/15/00.0
lspci: Unable to read 64 bytes of configuration space.

Now I was also thinking...can you put an entry in /etc/pcmcia/config to identify the card with the info you get from cardctl ident? the pci id info...

Yes, you'll have to add 2 entries, one near the top for the module and one someplace futher down for the card. The irq problem is still there for this card?

ok...Installed Redhat 7.3...now I can run lspci -vv and I get all the information about the card...now...how do i get a driver to work :P
I notice now tho that nothing comes up under cardctl ident...is that normal? Under cardctl status shows it as a 3.3v cardbus card. Here is my output from lspci -vv:

14:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.: Unknown device 8180 (rev 20)
Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.: Unknown device 8180
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
Region 0: I/O ports at 4000 [size=256]
Region 1: Memory at 10800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1+,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold-)
Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-


Any suggestions will help Thankya :P

Massah

I have a card that also reports nothing on cardctl ident, yet it still works, try this link:
http://www.linuxhq.com/ldp/howto/Wir...PC11/x101.html
and/or search here on linuxquestions for the thread on the linksys wpc11v4 where they got it working, it has the same chipset as your card.

ps: here is the link to realtek's download for this chipset:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...2002121Unix%20(Linux)

Ok...revelation...I have read all the way through that WPC11 post and I've got the wireless part "working" the link light flashes like alot of people post...but I am getting the message:

RTL8180: TX NORMAL Descriptor unavailable!

scrolling down the screen untill i type ./wlandown to disable the wifi card...i can also do iwpriv msglevel 0 to suppress that message...but all i get is my link light flashing. Still kinda in limbo right now tho...but getting closer! Any more suggestions?

I am truly sorry, I have *no idea* what the error message means...

Is it possible that your chipset is one generation *ahead* of 8180? that would mean that error message might be indicating that it's not quite the right module for the device, although I would think it should refuse to load if it did not find a matching device.