2 3com 590 nics not working

["Michael McCaffrey" <michael_(_at_)_fxprojects_(_dot_)_com>]

hi people,

i'm trying to build a bridge/firewall with 2 3com 590 nics (ep0, ep1) on 
a 2.8 system. i've done it already with 2 intel fxp nics so i don't think 
i'm doing anything wrong. as far as a can tell with tcpdump no traffic 
(not a single bit) is going in or out of ep1. i decided to just setup up 
the system as a normal client to test both cards and cables.

test 1

ep0 configured, cable connected.
ep1 not configured, no cable.

everything works fine. traffic flows


test 2

ep0 not configured, no cable.
ep1 configured, cable connected.

nothing and ifconfig ep1 says the cable is not connected even though it 
is. bad card i think. for some reason i connect the cable to ep0 and it 
works even though ep0 is NOT configured and ifconfig for ep1 says there's 
no cable. is this crazy or what? i'm about to go insane from this one.

i don't have the output from ifconfig but here's the summary for the 
second test that works with the cable connected to ep0 but ep1 is 
configured...

ifconfig ep0
	not configured
	active

ifconfig ep1
	configured
	no cable

thanks,
mike