> Hello,
>
> I recently received a D-Link DFE-530TX that I put in a debian box, but
> it's not working.
> lspci -nn shows the card as :
> 00:0d.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6105
> [Rhine-III] [1106:3106] (rev 86)
>
> and in dmesg, I see :
> via-rhine.c:v1.10-LK1.4.3 2007-03-06 Written by Donald Becker
> via-rhine: Broken BIOS detected, avoid_D3 enabled.
> --
> Invalid MAC address
> via-rhine: probe of 0000:00:0d.0 failed with error -5
>
> I'm using the 2.6.21.1 kernel, and was previously using debian kernel
> 2.6.18-4, where I had the same errors, except the "Broken BIOS" bit.

So it was never working with either kernel, right?

We had a problem that looked similar around 2.6.8.
You could try:

* a kernel without ACPI and APIC support [helped some people seeing the
 same symptoms]

* power down the computer, leave it unplugged(!) for a while; boot with
 2.6.21.1 (not 2.6.18-4, because the kernel would put the Rhine back to D3
 to sleeping state D3; some BIOS/kernel combinations cannot recover from a
 Rhine in D3]

* an old kernel, say 2.6.7 [early versions of 2.6.8 created the same
 symptoms (fixed later), and 2.6.7 doesn't contain code to enter
 D3]

Roger