How to enable the LAN9311 dual ports support on AM3517 EVM with WinCE?

Indy Chen57165

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: AM3517

Hi,

I am using BSP_WINCE_ARM_A8_01_00_00 on AM3517, there is only one named "SMSC91181" and one named "EMAC1" ethernet connections appeared in WinCE OS, but the LAN9311 on AM3517 EVM should have two ports can be used.

Does there any setting need to modify to support two ports of LAN9311?

Another question, even the ethernet cable has not connected to the port, it will keep the status of icon in connection(the icon at the the right-lower corner doesn't become disconnection). This were happened on both "EMAC1" and "SMSC91181" ports. Could someone help to check this?

Thank you.

Indy

over 14 years ago

0 Adeneo Embedded support team over 14 years ago

Mastermind 9310 points

Hi Indy,

The LAN9311 is actually a single MAC controller with a built-in switch that allows you connecting the controller to two different networks without the need of an external switch. To summarize, you should not expect to have two network interfaces under WinCE as only one MAC controller is present in the chip.

0 Indy Chen57165 over 14 years ago in reply to Adeneo Embedded support team

Prodigy 220 points

Hi,

Thank you for your reply.

The another question is the WinCE ethernet connection icon(at the right-lower corner) status keep connecting even I had disconnected the ethernet cable from the connector. Could you check this? thank you.

BR,

Indy

0 Adeneo Embedded support team over 14 years ago in reply to Indy Chen57165

Mastermind 9310 points

The LAN9311 comes with 3 internal PHYs, one for each of the two ports connected to the switch, and a virtual PHY connected to the MAC exposed on the OMAP bus that emulates the behavior of a regular PHY:

By default, the LAN9311 driver uses automatic detection of the PHY which ends up selecting the virtual PHY. This virtual PHY emulates the behavior and registers of a real PHY to simplify writing a generic driver for all SMSC chips but does not provide information regarding the link status of the two other ports. This is why WinCE does not get notified of the connection/disconnection of any of the two ports. There is quick way of telling the driver to use one of the two exposed ports PHY which actually provides link status, but you will get notified only for one physical port that you would have to choose. Let us know if you are interested in this solution, I will provide you the fix.

0 Indy Chen57165 over 14 years ago in reply to Adeneo Embedded support team

Prodigy 220 points

Hi,

Thank you for your excellent explanation, I got it now, and I am interested in the solution, please provide it to me.

BTW, the connection status not be updated(icon keeps connecting) not only appears on LAN9311 but also on EMAC1(J31 connector on AM35x base board), can you explain this please? Thank you.

BR,

Indy

0 Adeneo Embedded support team over 14 years ago in reply to Indy Chen57165

Mastermind 9310 points

3808.ETH_LINK_STATUS_PATCH.zip

Attached is a fix that sets the LAN9311 driver to report link status of Port 1. If you want to use Port 2 instead, change the "PhyAddress" registry key under smsc9118.reg (1 is virtual PHY, 2 is Port 1 and 3 is Port 3).

Also you noticed that the EMAC had the same problem, which actually happens only when both EMAC and LAN9311 drivers are loaded. This is due to a conflict in the BusNumber key that was the same for both interfaces. The patch above changes this value for the EMAC driver, which fixes the issue.