[vortex] 3c59x / vortex_error(), status=0xe081 / RAM > 3GB

[Detlef Graef]

Hello,

Bogdan Costescu schrieb:

> On Sat, 4 Apr 2009, Detlef Graef wrote:
> 
>> after upgrading my PC from 2GB of RAM to 6GB the NIC 3C905C-TX doesn't 
>> work any more.
> 
> I did a lot of work with the 3c59x driver but that was long ago so some 
> information bits have vanished from my memory. I seem to remember that 
> the pointers that the DMA engine from the card uses are 32bit ones - 
> meaning that you shouldn't expect it to work when memory can be 
> allocated beyond 4GB. You can try forcing the use of IOMMU, but how or 
> whether that would work depends a lot on the actual hardware (CPU + 
> mainboard).
> 
> By the way, this problem is not a 3c59x specific one; the hardware was 
> designed 10 or more years ago when 64bit OSes existed only on very 
> expensive hardware. Modern PCIe based network cards should not have this 
> limitation.


I've booted FreeBSD/AMD64 7.1 on the PC and the NIC 3C905TX is working
without any problem. It seems that the hardware/BIOS is not the problem.

I'm using an other PCI NIC, I don't expect that the problem will be
fixed. I don't know what the problem eventually is.


Detlef Graef