First of all sorry if this answer has been answered before, I have looked into the archives and did not find the answer.

We are using a 8260 processor with ELDK 3.1.1,  kernel 2.4.25 patched with lck1. We have configured the kernel with USE_MDIO and LXT971.
The problem we face is that the boot process stops after displaying the configuration of the card:
eth0: config: autonegotiation on, 100FDX,...
and after the board seems to freeze.

Following the code, I located the error in the startup command of the LXT971, concretely in the line setting the autonegotiation:
{mk_mii_write(MII_REG_CR, 0x1200), NULL}, /* autonegotiate */ 

I have the same here but it doesn't freezes, it just doesn't works :).
(maybe it "freezes" because next step depends on the eth like RARP?)
I digged into LXT971 datasheet and 0x1200 appears to be correct. I was thinking
in add an module option to manually set it (and thus avoiding the need to use
ethtool). Any MII guru around to help us on this?

--
Aristeu