I made an interesting observation... Out of frustration I dumped all chip's register (luckily, there are only about 20 of them), and what I see there: on first attempts the PolarityOK bit is set, and reception doesn't work. Then after some time the bit gets cleared, and - voila - it works! The chip does have automatic polarity detection, if I disable it, it _never_ receives a frame, that's what made me suspicious in the first place. And now the confirmation. I'll have to check if the board is connected with a crossover cable to the switch... But why does the automatic detection need so long??? I just tried again just waiting for a couple of minutes without doing anything, and already on the first access the chip had polarity correctly and ping worked. So, it either needs about a minute idle time (ok, maybe there are some broadcasts taking place in this time), or some activity. That also explains why pinging the board from outside helps too.
But why so long???
Thanks Guennadi --- Guennadi Liakhovetski, Ph.D.
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