Abit AX8 / IC Plus 1000 series Ethernet

[Kyuu Eturautti]

Has anyone played around with the Abit AX8 motherboard in Linux? This
and I believe some other recent Athlon64 boards feature a pci (express?)
ethernet controller "IC Plus IP1000 Family".

http://www.icplus.com.tw/driver-pp-IP1000A.html has some drivers, but
they seem to be just enough outdated not to understand this model.
Compiles and loads, but doesn't find a nic.

Some googling and poking around suggest that the D-Link DGE-560T PCI
Express NIC may have the same chip. However, D-Link doesn't even have
Windows drivers on their site for this model.

The PCI ID database ( http://pciids.sourceforge.net/iii/?i=13f0 ) as
well as other sources have a reference to http://www.sundanceti.com/ -
however, this site has been down for at least two days.

Kernels up to 2.6.12-rc2 don't seem to have a driver available.

lspci -v output:
0000:00:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Sundance Technology Inc: Unknown
device 1023 (rev 41)
Subsystem: ABIT Computer Corp.: Unknown device 1416
Flags: 66MHz, medium devsel, IRQ 233
I/O ports at ea00 [size=256]
Memory at dfffd000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2


Kyuu 'Vekotin' Eturautti

[r***@yahoo.com]

IC Plus Corp. posted a new Linux driver for IP1000A (v2.07, Apr. 20, 05
and v2.07a, Apr. 25, 05; the only difference between v2.07 and v2.07a
is a small correction in readme.txt), that works flawlessly with kernel
2.6.9. However this driver fails to work with kernel 2.6.11: when
compiling, several warning messages "initialization from incompatible
pointer type" appear, and when loading, "IP1000 based ethernet device
not found on PCI bus". One problem of kernel 2.6.9 is the lack of
support for the SATA controller VT6421L (kernel 2.6.11 supports it). I
requested IC Plus Corp to update the Linux driver. Let's see what they
do...

[Kyuu Eturautti]

Post by r***@yahoo.com
IC Plus Corp. posted a new Linux driver for IP1000A (v2.07, Apr. 20, 05
and v2.07a, Apr. 25, 05; the only difference between v2.07 and v2.07a
is a small correction in readme.txt), that works flawlessly with kernel
2.6.9. However this driver fails to work with kernel 2.6.11: when
compiling, several warning messages "initialization from incompatible
pointer type" appear, and when loading, "IP1000 based ethernet device
not found on PCI bus". One problem of kernel 2.6.9 is the lack of
support for the SATA controller VT6421L (kernel 2.6.11 supports it). I
requested IC Plus Corp to update the Linux driver. Let's see what they
do...

As an Abit reseller, I also let them know that way. It may be that
they'll actually listen to a direct customer rather than an end user.

My guess is that this won't be fixed anytime soon though. I just like to
be pessimistic. Fortunately, I don't need gigabit speeds on any AX8
boards and I can just use old 10/100 PCI card. Except for the onboard
LAN, the AX8 seems like a useful board, I've got three in use so far.
That'll probably double before long.


/v\

[r***@yahoo.com]

IC Plus Corp. released IP1000A Linux driver v2.08 on May 13. I
installed it in my AX8 box, a dual booting system of WIN2K/FC4 Test 2
(kernel 2.6.11), and it works fine! IC Plus Corp. listened to users'
request and was very quick to respond. It seems that we do not have to
worry about compatibility issue of LAN with Linux in future.

[Kyuu Eturautti]

Post by r***@yahoo.com
IC Plus Corp. released IP1000A Linux driver v2.08 on May 13. I
installed it in my AX8 box, a dual booting system of WIN2K/FC4 Test 2
(kernel 2.6.11), and it works fine! IC Plus Corp. listened to users'
request and was very quick to respond. It seems that we do not have to
worry about compatibility issue of LAN with Linux in future.

Works - yes
Fine - no

Virtual interfaces dont work with this at all. eth0 works nicely but
eth0:0 won't work at all with this driver. I do admit there's a lot of
improvement from broken driver to working driver, but this isn't working
as it should.

Does anyone have any common tips as to what the problem might be. If I
plug in a PCI 3Com card, eth0 and eth0:0 work perfectly.


/v\

[r***@yahoo.com]

The differences between IP1000A linux drivers v2.06, v2.07 and v2.08
are extremely small and minor, less than 20 lines in the ipg_main.c
file, mostly related to kernel version numbers. This should be so
because they claims that v2.06 already works with kernel 2.6.x.

I don't have the knowledge of linux device driver develpment, so I
don't know how much work is necessary to make virtual interface work.
But in my feeling this could be fixed relatively easily. (Of course I
may be wrong.)

Perhaps you have already contacted IC Plus Corp for tech support. If
not yet, you should contact them. They may or may not reply to you. But
there is still some chance of improvement if they know that users
complain of their drivers.

[r***@yahoo.com]

Post by Kyuu Eturautti
I do admit there's a lot of
improvement from broken driver to working driver,

The differences between IP1000A linux drivers v2.06, v2.07 and v2.08
are extremely small and minor, less than 20 lines in the ipg_main.c
file, mostly related to kernel version numbers. This should be so
because v2.06 already works, as they claim, with earlier versions of
kernel 2.6.

Post by Kyuu Eturautti
Virtual interfaces dont work with this at all. eth0 works nicely but
eth0:0 won't work at all with this driver.

I don't have the knowledge of linux device driver develpment, so I
don't know how much work is necessary to make virtual interface work.
(I don't use it at all.) In my feeling this could be fixed relatively
easily. Of course I may be wrong.

Perhaps you have already contacted IC Plus Corp for tech support. If
not yet, you should contact them. They may or may not reply to you. But
there is still some chance of improvement if they know that users
complain of their drivers.

[r***@yahoo.com]

Post by Kyuu Eturautti
I do admit there's a lot of
improvement from broken driver to working driver,

The differences between IP1000A linux drivers v2.06, v2.07 and v2.08
are extremely small and minor, less than 20 lines in the ipg_main.c
file, mostly related to kernel version numbers. This should be so
because v2.06 already works, as they claim, with earlier versions of
kernel 2.6.

Post by Kyuu Eturautti
Virtual interfaces dont work with this at all. eth0 works nicely but
eth0:0 won't work at all with this driver.

I don't have the knowledge of linux device driver develpment, so I
don't know how much work is necessary to make virtual interface work.
(I don't use it at all.) In my feeling this could be fixed relatively
easily. Of course I may be wrong.

Perhaps you have already contacted IC Plus Corp for tech support. If
not yet, you should contact them. They may or may not reply to you. But
there is still some chance of improvement if they know that users
complain of their drivers.

[Kyuu Eturautti]

Post by r***@yahoo.com
Perhaps you have already contacted IC Plus Corp for tech support. If
not yet, you should contact them. They may or may not reply to you. But
there is still some chance of improvement if they know that users
complain of their drivers.

Yes, I've contacted the. No reply. But I've also sent some email to my
Abit contact, they're probably managing to forward the information.

It obviously wouldn't take them too long to do this right in the first
place. Sigh...


/v\