via-rhine weirdness with via kt8235 Southbridge

[Christian Guggenberger <christian.guggenberger@physik.uni-regensburg.de>]

I like to report some Problems with the NIC integrated in the via kt8235 
chipset.
(Mobo is a Epox 8k5a3+, network is 10 MBit half-duplex)

1.
This concerns both 2.4 and 2.5 kernels  (testet with 2.4.20pre*aa series, and 
with 2.5.43, 2.5.44 and 2.5.44-ac1):

When I enable APIC in the Bios, the via-rhine module will insert properly, but 
I won't get a link... With APIC disabled, link is ok.
Ok, this could be caused by buggy bios, so I'll try again, when a new 
biosversion is available.

2.
This only happens with the 2.5 series (testet with 2.5.43 and above):
When there's much flow on the nic, I get many timeouts ending in dead NIC and 
I've to reboot...

Oct 23 14:56:45 bonnie79 kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
Oct 23 14:56:45 bonnie79 kernel: eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0000, PHY 
status 786d, resetting...
Oct 23 14:56:49 bonnie79 kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
Oct 23 14:56:49 bonnie79 kernel: eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0000, PHY 
status 786d, resetting...
Oct 23 14:56:59 bonnie79 kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
Oct 23 14:56:59 bonnie79 kernel: eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0000, PHY 
status 786d, resetting...

I remember a discussion (Sep. 26th, I think), where such problems had been 
reported for the 2.4.20pre kernels.... which now seem to be fixed in the 
latest 2.4 series.

Christian