PCMCIA woes

Ribs · Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2003 1:53 pm Post subject: PCMCIA woes

Hi,

I'm fairly new to Linux, and Gentoo, so bear with me if I ask something stupid in the next few lines

I've tried to install Gentoo in a spare laptop I have in my room. I downloaded the full CD image for i686 (My laptop is a PII, so I think this is right). I decided to use stage3, as I'm too lazy/stupid to get from stage1/2 to stage3.

Anyway, I re-partitioned the hard drive, and booted from the CD fine. After setting a root password, I did as the motd told me and followed the readme, with a seperate terminal to run the commands in (Alt+F2).

The problem comes when I attempt to access the laptop's PCMCIA ports. I followed the guide, and entered what was required. However, after cardmgr is started, nothing happens to the network card in the slots. No lights, no beeps, nothing. In Windows, at least one of the lights comes on, as well as the speaker beeping.

I think the problem occurs when I run the "modprobe i82365" command. It reports something about not being able to find a IRQ for the slots, so it uses 255 (or 225, I can't remember, and I don't have the laptop with me right now to test). This is wrong, as Windows and the BIOS reports the IRQ to be 11 for those slots. However, it does say it's listening for two slots, which is re-assureing.

So I can only conclude that I somehow have to tell the i82365 module to use IRQ 11 or specfic memory addresses. This is where I get stuck, as I have no idea how to do this. Can anybody here point me in the right direction?

The model of the laptop is a Toshiba Tecra 8000.

bsolar · Bodhisattva Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 2764

You were right. Look here:
http://www.shroom.com/linux/laptop/8000-3.html#ss3.2
It should help you.

In the end you should try to exclude inq 3,4,7,9 in

Ribs · Posted: Tue Jan 28, 2003 7:09 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the advice. I did what the page said, However this still didn't work. Excluding the other IRQ numbers had no effect, as it is still trying to use 255.

I reset the BIOS to it's default settings. This had no effect. Prehaps it's not finding the hardware during startup, but the text goes past so quickly that I cannot see it. Is it possible to see the bootup log?

This is what I see on my screen after setting a password and editing the config file in nano (in a seperate console, using alt + F2), and after typeing the relevant command stated in the gentoo installation guide (this is typed by hand, so please excuse any spelling mistakes):

bsolar · Bodhisattva Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 2764

try this: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=26716

Maybe you'll find something that helps...

If you are looking for error messages try typing "dmesg" or look in /var/log

bsolar · Bodhisattva Joined: 12 Jan 2003 Posts: 2764

In google I found this: http://howto.gp.mines.edu/HOWTO/PCMCIA-HOWTO.html#ss2.4
So try excluding irq 3,5,9, hoping this works

Ribs · Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2003 1:45 pm Post subject:

Thanks again for your help.

However, I don't think that ecluding the IRQs will help me here, as it is never hitting any of the excluded IRQs, but instead jumping straight to 255. Somehow, I have to force/pursade/pay it to use IRQ 11.

I will look at the startup log tomorrow night when I get back home and see if that throws up anything interesting. However, I have a feeling that I may never get it working, which kinda kills any prospects of me using Linux

Thanks again.

Ribs · Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2003 9:20 am Post subject:

Okay, I've given up trying to install Gentoo on this laptop. I instead decided to install it on my main PC, onto a old HD I had knocking around. I ran into problems with this as well (I'm currently on day two of the install!) but I am slowley working through them.

Thanks again for your advice.

Regards,
-Ribs.