Red hat 6.0 wouldn't recogonize the athome's ISA cable modem I used isapnptools to configure the card. It was not clear from the documentation which to configure (The IRQ or the board address) I went back to WIN95 and wrote down all the configuratiomn parameters. On my old IWILL motherboard I configured just the IRQ OK. The new faster moutherboard would not work with this configureation. After reinstalling the system about 30 times I found out that the only way that worked was to configue the board with the address from WIN95. The system hung every time an attempt was made to configue eth0 with the IRQ and isapnp did not complain. Finally I found out that I needed to configure the board address at 0x210 and change the fatal messages to warning so that it would complete. I am sure that there was no resource conflict that isapnp reported because I checked all the resources that Red Hat had configured. Some error is in the resource.c file.
isapnptools has a couple of bugs with I/O addresses. Try grabbing the latest isapnptools from Raw Hide (ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/rawhide/) - does that solve the problem?
This isa ethernet card supplied by athome is causing severe problems. There is no good documentation on the configuration of a cable modem on an ISA card. The documentation that exists is not complete and does not give a procedure on the complete configuration. The information is fragmented. The worst part of the configuration is when the system is rebooted and it hangs on configuration of eth0. Usually a complete install is necessary because this particular "hang" damages the root filesystem so badly that recovery is not possible with fsck under any circumstances. I found out by trial and error that configurating the port address (derived from windows - Ugh) and not the IRQ with isapnp works if the fatal errors are downgraded to warnings.
Did you try the updated isapnptools?
I did try the newer tools but they did not do any better than the older one. The listing below is the file that works. After all other parameters have been entered in the control panel and linuxconf the command "/sbin/isapnp /etc/isapnp.conf" will verify that the card is recogonized. I do "ifconfig" to verify that eth0 is active and then reboot. I have reinstalled so many times, I can do it in my sleep. I just refuse to give up because I want this system to work. In the long run, I intend to get another motherboard with 5 pci cards and replace this turkey isa card with the EtherExpress 100 pci which the system will recogonize without isapnp. That card will adjust the speed automatically to 10 megabits per second. In the meantime I have archived the file that works. ********************************************************* # $Id: pnpdump.c,v 1.18 1999/02/14 22:47:18 fox Exp $ # This is free software, see the sources for details. # This software has NO WARRANTY, use at your OWN RISK # # For details of this file format, see isapnp.conf(5) # # For latest information and FAQ on isapnp and pnpdump see: # http://www.roestock.demon.co.uk/isapnptools/ # # Compiler flags: -DREALTIME -DNEEDSETSCHEDULER -DABORT_ONRESERR # # Trying port address 0203 # Board 1 has serial identifier ef c9 a6 1f 36 31 10 d4 25 (DEBUG) (READPORT 0x0203) (ISOLATE PRESERVE) (IDENTIFY *) (VERBOSITY 2) (CONFLICT (IO WARNING)(IRQ WARNING)(DMA WARNING)(MEM WARNING)) # or WARNINGING # Card 1: (serial identifier ef c9 a6 1f 36 31 10 d4 25) # Vendor Id INT1031, Serial Number 3383107382, checksum 0xEF. # Version 1.0, Vendor version 0.0 # ANSI string -->Intel PRO/10+ or compatible adapter<-- # # Logical device id INT1031 # Device support I/O range check register # Device supports vendor reserved register @ 0x38 # Device supports vendor reserved register @ 0x3a # Device supports vendor reserved register @ 0x3d # # Edit the entries below to uncomment out the configuration required. # Note that only the first value of any range is given, this may be changed if required # Don't forget to uncomment the activate (ACT Y) when happy (CONFIGURE INT1031/3383107382 (LD 0 # Compatible device id INT1030 # Logical device decodes 10 bit IO address lines # Minimum IO base address 0x0200 # Maximum IO base address 0x0390 # IO base alignment 16 bytes # Number of IO addresses required: 16 (IO 0 (SIZE 16) (BASE 0x0210) (CHECK)) # IRQ 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11 or 12. # High true, edge sensitive interrupt (by default) # (INT 0 (IRQ 3 (MODE +E))) (NAME "INT1031/3383107382[0]{Intel PRO/10+ or compatible adapter}") (ACT Y) )) # End tag... Checksum 0x00 (OK) # Returns all cards to the "Wait for Key" state (WAITFORKEY) ***************************************************************
That's odd - you really should configure the IRQ to *something*; while 3 might be (probably is) in use by a serial port, something else is probably available. You might have to enable an IRQ in the BIOS as 'reserved for legacy use'.
I configured the IRQ to 5 and the address to 0x210 in the linuxconf configuration. This is the data that windows reported and with no conflicts. I can't configure the IRQ in the isapnp.conf using this motherboard (1st motherboard), although I could with the old IWILL I had (burned up). This address is usually reserved for the sound card. I have some software that will tell me what IRQ's are available when I put in the sound card, but that's another problem.
A final note (unless you people have more to say): ifconfig lockes up the system completely if isapnp.conf does not do the job properly. There should be a timeout on ifconfig to let go of it's death grip on the system. About 50% of the time the root filesystem will be trashed beyound fsck's help. That (the timeout for ifconfig) should be fixed.