MSI MS-6378XL w/LAN + Linux = trouble! Help!

[Joffer]

I've just got a new mainboard with vga, sound and nic integrated, ideal for a small server, more specific a MSI MS-6378XL - MSI Homepage: MS-6378 Product Info. The webpage says it has a RealTek 8100 chip, while I've located an AMDtek AN983B
chip on the mainboard, and so says the manual too. Looking at the info on the CD that came with the mainboard, and also doing a quick search on the net, told me it was a some kind of a tulip chip/nic, but modprobe tulip did not work, giving me this error:

with 2.2.20 kernel (trustix iso as of 20020301):

using /lib/modules/2.2.20-1tr/net/tulip.o
/lib/modules/2.2.20-1tr/net/tulip.o: init_module: device or resource busy
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect modules parameters, including
invalid IO or IRQ parameters


I also tried with a 2.4.18 kernel, but here i get this:

/lib/modules/2.4.18/kernel/drivers/net/tulip/tulip.o: init_module: No such
device
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect modules parameters, including
invalid IO or IRQ parameters
modprobe: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.18/kernel/drivers/net/tulip/tulip.o failed
modprobe: insmod tulip failed

lspci gives me:
00:0f.0 Ethernet controller: Bridgecom, Inc: Unknown device 9511 (rev 11)

any suggestions?

 

[Buz2b]

I am NOT a knowledgable Linux person, however I have a friend that recently started venturing in that direction. He ran into something similar on an older board once and (please, this is not a smarta$$ answer) what he did was this: He loaded a copy of WinXP (from his other machine and no he didn't activate it) and after it was done he went into Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/ System Information. In that utility it correctly identified the hardware in question on his board for him. That might seem kind of a "hokey" workaround but it worked for him so it might be worth a shot if you don't get a better answer.

 

[Joffer]

you mean to get a more accurat verification on exactly what chip this NIC is running on?

 

[Buz2b]

Yes, sorry I wasn't more clear on that. It sounded like you were having trouble because you weren't sure exactly what part was installed. If you load XP and enable the onboard LAN, it will identify and load drivers for it. Then that info and ID will be available for you in the area I described.

 

[Joffer]

well, I kinda know it is a tulip device, and even the product:

tulip-diag.c:v2.10 3/08/2002 Donald Becker (becker@scyld.com)
http://www.scyld.com/diag/index.html
Index #1: Found a ADMtek Comet-II adapter at 0xe800.
Comet duplex is reported in the MII status registers.
Transmit stopped, Receive stopped, half-duplex.
The Rx process state is 'Stopped'.
The Tx process state is 'Stopped'.
The transmit threshold is 128.
Interrupt sources are pending! CSR5 is fc00c810.
Link passed indication.
Timer expired indication.
Early Rx indication.
Comet MAC address registers 47dc1000 ffffddb3
Comet multicast filter 0000000000000000.
Use '-a' or '-aa' to show device registers,
'-e' to show EEPROM contents, -ee for parsed contents,
or '-m' or '-mm' to show MII management registers.

but loading the tulip driver was not successfull thanx for trying to help though.

 

[Joffer]

Well.. I sent an email to Donald Becker, the man behind the tuliup.c driver among other things, and I got an answer. And it looks like I've been a bit blind, I did not see the link to his updates (http://www.scyld.com/network/updates.html)

The quick and dirty solution was:
# Transfer the Scyld PCI Netdriver package
# Perhaps use ncftpget ftp://ftp.scyld.com/pub/network/netdrivers-3.1-1.src.rpm
rpm -i ftp://ftp.scyld.com/pub/network/netdrivers-3.1-1.src.rpm
# Build the binary version for your kernel
cd /usr/src/RPM
rpm -bb SPECS/netdriver*.spec
# Now install it your newly built package.
rpm -i --force RPMS/i386/netdrivers-3.1-1.i386.rpm
(or rpm -i --force RPMS/i386/netdrivers-3.1-1.i686.rpm in my case)

well, isn't it typical. I actually did go out and by myself a cheap unex 10/100 NIC for 12 bucks, and now, about 6 hours later, I solved the mystery.. very well.. can't do any harm having a (cheap,) spare NIC lying around.

well.. I'm off to do a new install on this box.

 

[Peter]

weeeelll... how come you trying to load the tulip.o driver (for DEC/Intel 2114x chips) if you think you got a Realtek chip there?
Try the 8139too.o. And if it's actually an AMD ethernet chip, you need the pcnet.o driver.

Finally, there is a chance they're using the VIA chipset integrated VIA ethernet controller, and the AMD chip you see there
is just a physical interface helper. The "983" chip number would suggest that. Or maybe the VIA integrated ethernet goes to
the CNR riser, and the Realtek goes to the RJ45 connector in the USB block.

(The board photo on the link you gave clearly shows a Realtek chip with their brand crab on, but maybe the photo shows an
early engineering sample and they did it differently for the shipping product.)

(Edit: Log on as root, and use the lspci command to identify your ethernet controller hardware.)

regards, Peter

 

[Joffer]

Peter, is there a chance you have read more than every 10th word? Well, enough sarcasm, no harm intended. I hadn't tried the tulip driver if i thought it was a realtek chip, and if you had read what I had written, you would have seen I had located an ADMtek AN983B chip, and you would also have seen I had solved the problem, and also that I got two different names for the chip with lspci etc. anyway, the problem is solved, as you can read in the post above yours.