TF1230 and 3Com PCMCIA Ethernet

[TheDuke0fAwesome]

My A1200 with TF1230 has been working fine since september 2021 but I have recently run into an issue, I cannot get a 3Com ethernet card to work although it works fine when the TF1230 is removed so wanted to see if anybody is using a 3Com card and TF1230 without issues.

I bought a 3Com 3C589D PCMCIA ethernet card, installed roadshow and 3c589.device and plugged in the card. I can connect to the network but cannot use DHCP, with a manual IP address, I get a connection but a lot of packet loss when pinging and no program is able to receive data even on my local network.

I have since tried another 3C589D and a 3C562 card but all three act in the exact same way.

I did have a prism2 WiFI card working a few months ago and a CF adapter works fine for copying files so PCMCIA seems at least somewhat fine.

Have tried both Roadshow and MiamiDX, clean OS3.2 install, 3 different cards, 4 network switches including a 10/100 switch in case it helped with auto negotiation. I isolated just the Amiga and my laptop from the rest of the network in case another device was causing an issue on the network.

The only thing that has worked was removing the TF1230 from the amiga but that's not much of a solution.

A1200 1D.4 recapped in 2020 and timing fixes done. OS3.2 ROMs. TF1230 is running the latest firmware.

The only other hardware is a ScanPlusAGA, can't try without that yet, only have access to screens with VGA or HDMI right now.

Is this just a me problem or has nobody tried a similar setup?

[tuf]

Reading this I get a feeling of dread like I'm about to go through the same thing. I'm waiting for a 3com card to arrive and test - currently using a prism2 card and it works fine.

[terriblefire]

I've not tried this card. TBH i dont really use the 1230 that much. Before going too deep into a hardware investigation has anyone got this card and another 030 card?

[TheDuke0fAwesome]

So far the only information I have been able to get is that somebody has a 3Com card working with a Blizzard 1260 and somebody else has a prism2 card working with a TF1230. Not very useful but hopefully somebody will turn up with a TF1230 or at the least another 030 card and a 3Com card.

I have spend days searching the depths of the internet for anybody having even a somewhat similar problem with any setup and have come up with nothing. I tried to do as much research and testing of anything I could think of before I posted here but the only thing that gets the ethernet card working is removing the TF1230 or removing the jumper to disable it. I can't do much testing with the TF1230 removed since OS3.2 doesn't leave enough memory free to run much but I can ping other devices on my local network and the internet fine and ran AmiSpeedTest OK. with the TF1230 pings get between 25 and 30% packet loss, Amispeedtest doesn't get past connecting to server and IBrowse waits forever for a response from any web site I try.

I forgot to mention, I did try CardPatch and CardReset but they made no difference at all. I also tried lowering the MTU and all sorts of settings I found in the Roadshow documentation just to see if they would make any difference but nothing did.

[terriblefire]

I have several cards working perfectly with the TF1260. I use them every day. Even has WPA2.

[TheDuke0fAwesome]

I did have a WiFi card working, a Lucent WaveLan silver as far as I remember. Had to give up on it as it only supported WEP encryption so had to set up a guest network especially for it on my router which disabled hardware acceleration and slowed down internet access for everything else. Supposedly there is newer firmware for it that supports WPA but the only systems I have with a PCMCIA slot are the amiga and an old Powerbook 3400c, neither of which are capable of updating the firmware.

I'm not a fan of using WiFi on anything that doesn't move so try and have everything connected with good old wires if possible.

[matt020]

Just quietly, I think it is Amiga OS 3.2

I have a TF1260 and a wifi PCMCIA card. Since installing a 3.2 ROM, the system is unstable when the PCMCIA card is active, even at default 50mhz

I think it's OS 3.2 and PCMCIA devices....

[TheDuke0fAwesome]

It could indeed be Amiga OS 3.2, I had no trouble at all with a PCMCIA WiFi card though. If I can find my 3.0 ROMs I'll try it and see. I packed up a lot of stuff last year and had a bit of a clear out so no idea where they got to.

I have posted in a few places to try and find somebody using a 3Com with a TF1230 and nobody has replied so far. I can't be the only one.

Hopefully tuf gets the card and gives it a try soon so I can know if it's just me.

[CrazyC]

I have an a1200 with a tf1260 and an a1200 with a b1230mkiv, both on 3.2 roms and both running pcmcia network cards and haven't seen anything to suggest it causes an issue?

[terriblefire]

I use a wifi card with OS3.2 + 1260. My daily driver amiga. No issues.