Making the "PCMCIAs Fast Ethernet+56K ComboCard" work in Debian GNU/Linux 6.0
Note written on 2011-09-23 by Göran Weinholt.

Keywords: pcmcia, linux, pcnet_cs, pcnet_reset_8390

I recently got a PC Card with two functions: FastEthernet and a 56K
modem. It didn't work straight away in Linux, so I am writing this to
let others know how I got it working on my IBM ThinkPad R50e.

First of all one needs to have pcmciautils installed. When I first
plugged in the card, this appeared in dmesg:

[22726702.412176] pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 0
[22726702.437450] cs: memory probe 0xf0000000-0xf7ffffff: excluding 0xf0000000-0xf7ffffff
[22726702.469352] cs: memory probe 0xd0200000-0xdfffffff: excluding 0xd0200000-0xd11fffff 0xd1a00000-0xd21fffff 0xd2a00000-0xd31fffff 0xd3a00000-0xd81fffff 0xd8a00000-0xd91fffff 0xd9a00000-0xda1fffff 0xdaa00000-0xdb1fffff 0xdba00000-0xdc1fffff 0xdca00000-0xdd1fffff 0xdda00000-0xde1fffff 0xdea00000-0xdf1fffff 0xdfa00000-0xe01fffff
[22726702.596414] pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia0.0
[22726702.872045] eth%d: pcnet_reset_8390() did not complete.
[22726702.911079] pcnet_cs: unable to read hardware net address for io base 0x3300

Here's the initial output from lspcmcia -vv:

Socket 0 Bridge:   	[yenta_cardbus] 	(bus ID: 0000:02:00.0)
	Configuration:	state: on	ready: yes
			Voltage: 5.0V Vcc: 5.0V Vpp: 5.0V
			Available IRQs: 3, 4, 6, 10
			Available ioports:	0x00000100 - 0x000003af
						0x000003e0 - 0x000004cf
						0x000004d8 - 0x000004ff
						0x00000820 - 0x000008ff
						0x00000a00 - 0x00000aff
						0x00000c00 - 0x00000cf7
						0x00003000 - 0x00007fff
			Available iomem:	0x000c0000 - 0x000fffff
						0xd1200000 - 0xd19fffff
						0xd2200000 - 0xd29fffff
						0xd3200000 - 0xd39fffff
						0xd8200000 - 0xd89fffff
						0xd9200000 - 0xd99fffff
						0xda200000 - 0xda9fffff
						0xdb200000 - 0xdb9fffff
						0xdc200000 - 0xdc9fffff
						0xdd200000 - 0xdd9fffff
						0xde200000 - 0xde9fffff
						0xdf200000 - 0xdf9fffff
Socket 0 Device 0:	[-- no driver --]	(bus ID: 0.0)
	Configuration:	state: on
	Product Name:   PCMCIAs Fast Ethernet+56K ComboCard 
	Identification:	manf_id: 0x0143	card_id: 0xc0ab
			function: 0 (multifunction)
			prod_id(1): "PCMCIAs" (0xdcfe12d3)
			prod_id(2): "Fast Ethernet+56K ComboCard" (0x615f1bfd)
			prod_id(3): --- (---)
			prod_id(4): --- (---)

So apparently the pcnet_cs driver could not communicate with the
network chip. Some googling indicated that these cards do not decode
the whole I/O port range. To fix this it is possible to exclude I/O
ranges with /etc/pcmcia/config.opts. So I promptly added this in
config.opts:

exclude port 0x3000-0x7fff

I tried to eject and insert the card. This doesn't work. Don't even
bother. You have to run this program:

/lib/udev/pcmcia-socket-startup

But it still didn't work. So on a hunch I commented out this line:

#include port 0xa00-0xaff

And then I reran /lib/udev/pcmcia-socket-startup. Now this appeared in
dmesg:

[22746170.116048] eth2: NE2000 (DL10019 rev 05): io 0x300, irq 3, hw_addr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
[22746170.176075] pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia0.1
[22746170.228077] 0.1: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A

Here's the new output from lspcmcia -vv:

Socket 0 Bridge:   	[yenta_cardbus] 	(bus ID: 0000:02:00.0)
	Configuration:	state: on	ready: yes
			Voltage: 5.0V Vcc: 5.0V Vpp: 0.0V
			Available IRQs: 3, 4, 6, 10
			Available ioports:	0x00000100 - 0x000003af
						0x000003e0 - 0x000004cf
						0x000004d8 - 0x000004ff
						0x00000820 - 0x000008ff
						0x00000a00 - 0x00000aff
						0x00000c00 - 0x00000cf7
			Available iomem:	0x000c0000 - 0x000fffff
						0x60000000 - 0x60ffffff
						0xa0000000 - 0xa0ffffff
						0xd1200000 - 0xd19fffff
						0xd2200000 - 0xd29fffff
						0xd3200000 - 0xd39fffff
						0xd8200000 - 0xd89fffff
						0xd9200000 - 0xd99fffff
						0xda200000 - 0xda9fffff
						0xdb200000 - 0xdb9fffff
						0xdc200000 - 0xdc9fffff
						0xdd200000 - 0xdd9fffff
						0xde200000 - 0xde9fffff
						0xdf200000 - 0xdf9fffff
Socket 0 Device 0:	[pcnet_cs]		(bus ID: 0.0)
	Configuration:	state: on
	Product Name:   PCMCIAs Fast Ethernet+56K ComboCard 
	Identification:	manf_id: 0x0143	card_id: 0xc0ab
			function: 0 (multifunction)
			prod_id(1): "PCMCIAs" (0xdcfe12d3)
			prod_id(2): "Fast Ethernet+56K ComboCard" (0x615f1bfd)
			prod_id(3): --- (---)
			prod_id(4): --- (---)
Socket 0 Device 1:	[serial_cs]		(bus ID: 0.1)
	Configuration:	state: on
	Product Name:   PCMCIAs Fast Ethernet+56K ComboCard 
	Identification:	manf_id: 0x0143	card_id: 0xc0ab
			function: 0 (multifunction)
			prod_id(1): "PCMCIAs" (0xdcfe12d3)
			prod_id(2): "Fast Ethernet+56K ComboCard" (0x615f1bfd)
			prod_id(3): --- (---)
			prod_id(4): --- (---)

So to summarize: edit /etc/pcmcia/config.opts and add "exclude port
0x3000-0x7fff" and remove "include port 0xa00-0xaff". The excluded
port range might be different if you have a different machine. I have
no idea why it was necessary to remove the 0xa00 ports.

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