[ale] IRQ conflict with multiple NIC cards

[James P. Kinney III]

On Tue, 2003-05-27 at 12:41, Christopher Russell wrote:
> RE: IRQ conflict with multiple NIC cards
> 
> I am attempting to set up a primary machine as router/server for home
> LAN. It's RH8.0, on Gigabyte GA-7VRXP mobo (new Aug'02), has been
> running fine as a single host, but now I'm changing it. The first nic
> card is auto assigned an IRQ number, and internet connection works fine,
> but the later additional cards I believe have to be manually assigned an
> IRQ. - Otherwise they zap each other as 'inactive.'

The IRQ's are "assigned" at boot up. The new card is getting the IRQ of
the old card and isn't answering to the requested/specified IRQ. 
> 
> QUESTION:
> When adding nic cards, how do you determine assignment of IRQ numbers
> for each additional nic card?

Before adding a card, get the MAC address of the single card from
ifconfig. Use modules to install the drivers for the cards. Using
/etc/modules.conf, spec which IRQ goes to which eth(x) device. Find the
IRQ's by cat /proc/interrupts. If both cards use the same IRQ, that's
OK. Use the ioport instead of the IRQ. cat /proc/ioport to find what's
what.

I have worked this with 2 same model 3coms with no problems as well as 3
realtek's (dirt cheap, works pretty well). The secret is to know the
mac's by adding them one at a time, setup everything to dhcp, plug it
all in to a dhcp server and start networking. Now you can get the IRQ
and macs all synched nicely.
> 
> WHAT I'VE DONE SO FAR:
> Countless circumnavigation of 'configure' and 'activate' of System Tools
> > Network Device Control. Read HOW_TO's, and come to the conclusion it's
> an IRQ conflict.
> 
> How should I solve this, how do I determine IRQ assignment, please?
> Anything else I should know?
> Thanks in advance,
> Chris
> 
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James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
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GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics) <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
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