finally got usb smc 2662V2 working - here's my experience

Hi all,
I spent a w/e buggering around with this USB card, finally got it
working.

System: linux x86 2.4.20 SMP (Debian)
module used for usb controller: uhci 

The ATMEL sourceforge drivers locked up my system every time I tried to
use them - regardless of USB / external HUB etc configuration. I'm on
SMP anyway, and apparently the ATMEL sf drivers have SMP problems.

The latest CVS tarball (0.11beta4) berlios drivers worked straight away,
but I got terrible packet loss - about 1 in 20 pings would go through.
At first I thought the link wasn't up. I finally realised it was just
suffering a lot of packet loss.

I read someone's comment about an external host powered hub not having
enough power for the TX's. I moved the smc adapter from the external hub
(actually a keyboard/ usb hub). At this point everything started working
happily (including myself).

One thing I noticed was the fact that the card's external firmware was
only successfully reloaded if the card was first unplugged and then
plugged back in. Perhaps the card refuses to load it's external firmware
more then once.

Out of curiosity, can anyone tell me what the difference between the
internal/ external firmware? (Even a pointer to documentation somewhere
would be cool).

Anyway, thanks to the sourceforge and alternate driver developers, and
all the users who have posted comments.

Regards,
Hugh