I've successfully installed debian 2.0 on my thinkpad 560e, but I'm still getting frequent crashes. It boots and loads fine, and is network accessible, but seconds after I start typing on the keyboard it unloads the pcmcia card and reloads it. This behavior ONLY happens if I type on the machine's keyboard, I can telnet in from elsewhere and type all I like.
I've tried this with two different cards, a 3com 3c589 and a motorola mariner, each exhibits the same behavior, and both work on a similar laptop in slackware (and on the failing laptop in windows). My log/messages file gets a whole series of these: Aug 30 19:57:49 ankle kernel: loading device 'eth0'... Aug 30 19:57:49 ankle kernel: eth0: 3Com 3c589, port 0x300, irq 3, Auto port, hw_addr 00:60:97:41:81:78 Aug 30 19:57:49 ankle kernel: eth0: switched to 10baseT port And eventually it crashes the machine. Spread out in the log is also a random sampling of other errors, very inconsistent: Aug 30 15:01:31 ankle kernel: eth0: 91c92 hardware Tx buffer allocation failed, status 0xff. Aug 30 15:02:03 ankle kernel: eth0: SMC91c92 transmit timed out, Tx_status ff status ffff. Aug 30 15:02:03 ankle kernel: eth0: 91c92 hardware Tx buffer allocation failed, status 0xff. Aug 30 15:02:12 ankle kernel: smc91c92_cs: Unable to find hardware address. Aug 30 15:02:15 ankle kernel: smc91c92_cs: using 8-bit IO window. Aug 30 15:02:15 ankle kernel: smc91c92_cs: Yikes! Bad chip signature! Aug 30 15:02:15 ankle kernel: smc91c92_cs: Yikes! Bad chip signature! Aug 30 15:02:15 ankle kernel: eth0: 91c92 hardware Tx buffer allocation failed, status 0xff. Aug 30 15:02:45 ankle last message repeated 4 times Aug 30 15:03:00 ankle last message repeated 3 times Aug 30 16:05:34 ankle kernel: memory_cs: mem0: anonymous: unknown size But in spite of these ominous looking errors, the ethernet stays up fine (I was able to install debian via FTP!) as long as I don't type on the keyboard. The errors above are pretty rare, mostly it just cycles through the unloading/loading messages without any errors. I've tried excluding the IRQ/port, but that had no effect. /proc/interrupts and /proc/ioports look okay anyway: # cat /proc/interrupts 0: 3960057 timer 1: 4 keyboard 2: 0 cascade 3: 3119 3c589_cs 11: 1 i82365 12: 44 PS/2 Mouse 13: 1 math error 14: 210238 + ide0 # cat /proc/ioports 0000-001f : dma1 0020-003f : pic1 0040-005f : timer 0060-006f : keyboard 0080-008f : dma page reg 00a0-00bf : pic2 00c0-00df : dma2 00f0-00ff : npu 01f0-01f7 : ide0 0300-030f : 3c589_cs 03c0-03df : vga+ 03e0-03e1 : i82365 03f0-03f5 : floppy 03f6-03f6 : ide0 03f7-03f7 : floppy DIR 03f8-03ff : serial(set) (for completeness) # uname -a Linux ankle 2.0.34 #13 Sun Aug 30 21:17:55 PDT 1998 i586 unknown # lsmod Module Pages Used by psaux 1 1 (autoclean) 3c589_cs 2 1 ds 2 [3c589_cs] 3 i82365 4 2 pcmcia_core 8 [3c589_cs ds i82365] 4 I've read everything I can find, and the only person I found with the same error gave up on his machine. Does anyone have any ideas?