tulip network driver

[yoshi314]

I have an older box aside from my normal pc. It's a 336mhz p2 celeron with 256mb ram (dimm) and a couple of 40gb disks. i usually build packages on my box for it and then transfer it there. sometimes i run other distributions on it, when i get bored with compiling packages for another machine.

the problem : my 3com network card has broken (i'm looking for a new one), and now i have to use some macronix (i think it's mx87215 model) network card (it runs on tulip driver). the problem is - web browsing is very slow. browsers are extremely unresponsive and sometimes they even crash (also on win2000 installed on the same pc). tested on opera, firefox, epiphany. that didn't happen a year ago.

i tried 2.6.22 kernel, 2.6.23 and 2.6.18. 2.6.22 would panic and die now and then; other than that everything seems fine.

does anyone have experience with that network driver? coule the network card or the tulip driver be at fault? or perhaps the symptom of an aging pc?
_________________
~amd64
shrink your /usr/portage with squashfs+aufs

[NeddySeagoon]

yoshi314,

The Tulip driver is really a family of drivers. Some cards are very picky about the suboptions you build it with.
Read the help on every option within tulip and make some tests. Unfortunately, you will need to rebuild the kernel every test.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.