kernel panic upon heartbeat negotiation

[beecee]

I'm using a 3Com 3c574_cs PCMCIA networking card in my HD -installed system with a recompiled 2.4.22 kernel. This formerly worked fine, but now I'm connecting to an Me box to dump some archives. Right when my card is negotiating speed, I get this message:

"eth0: found link beat"

What used to follow was the (negotiated) 100Mbps speed. Now what I'm getting is a crash. I've included what I thought was relevant from /var/log/messages. The "cs: warning: no high memory space available!" messages I've gotten all along, even when the card worked, don't know if it's pertinent - it seems to straighten itself out.
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Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: Linux Kernel Card Services 3.1.22
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: options: [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 00:0a.0
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 00:0c.0
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 01:00.0
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 00:0a.1
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: Yenta IRQ list 0c98, PCI irq9
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: Socket status: 30000006
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: Yenta IRQ list 0c98, PCI irq9
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: Socket status: 30000010
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: cs: warning: no high memory space available!
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: cs: unable to map card memory!
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: cs: unable to map card memory!
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: lp0: using parport0 (polling).
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: Intel PCIC probe: not found.
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: Intel PCIC probe: not found.
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0820-0x08ff: clean.
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x080f: clean.
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x398-0x39f 0x4d0-0x4d7
Mar 20 19:32:40 gwlap kernel: cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
Mar 20 19:32:41 gwlap kernel: eth0: Megahertz 574B at io 0x300, irq 3, hw_addr 00:00:86:58:09:2F.
Mar 20 19:32:41 gwlap kernel: ASIC rev 1, 64K FIFO split 1:1 Rx:Tx, autoselect MII interface.

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[beecee]

I found the answer ... I was browsing an unrelated thread, and discovered mii-tool, part of David Hinds' net-tools package. I used mii-tool to force 100-baseTx (i.e., no auto-negotiation), and life is good!

For you gurus ... how do I:
* Write a script to force this (mii-tool -A 110-baseTx -F 100-baseTxHD 100-baseTxFD eth0)

* Use the script upon startup to force 100-baseTx AFTER the card is initialized & BEFORE autonegotiation starts??

Any help welcomed!! :-)

[beecee]

Uh ... I guess I didn't find the problem. it's still freezing (besides the fact that an mii-tool startup script is an unecessary kludge).

When I boot my original kernel, installed from the Knoppix CD, eth0 auto-negotiates its speed just fine, with no hangs. As it is the same (2.4.22) kernel, the problem must be in something I didn't compile in. I looked thru my config, but nothing jumps out as obviously wrong. Can I get a suggestion or two from you more enlightened types??