SpeedTouch 330 fails to load firmware

[K.L.Dixon]

I have been asked to post here by David Woodhouse.  I am having problems with
firmware loading on a SpeedTouch 330 under FC5.

I first posted to:-
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=100588
and then to:-
http://www.mail-archive.com/speedtouch@ml.free.fr/
and then to:-
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=187299

My system details are:-

Motherboard: ASUS K7V

>From /var/log/messages:-
  Linux version 2.6.17-1.2139_FC5 (brewbuilder at hs20-bc2-4.build.redhat.com) (gcc
version 4.1.1 20060525 (Red Hat 4.1.1-1)) #1 Fri Jun 23 12:40:16 EDT 2006
  Kernel command line: ro root=LABEL=/
  Detected 650.094 MHz processor.
  CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) Processor stepping 01

USB Configuration from /var/log/messages:-
  USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v3.0
  uhci_hcd 0000:00:04.2: UHCI Host Controller
  uhci_hcd 0000:00:04.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
  uhci_hcd 0000:00:04.2: irq 5, io base 0x0000d400
  usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
  hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
  hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
  uhci_hcd 0000:00:04.3: UHCI Host Controller
  uhci_hcd 0000:00:04.3: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
  uhci_hcd 0000:00:04.3: irq 5, io base 0x0000d000
  usb usb2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
  hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
  hub 2-0:1.0: 2 ports detected

The firmware usually fails to load, at boot or later.  I have developed a 
workaround which involves recompiling /sbin/firmware_helper with source from 
udev-084-13.src.rpm with some additional syslog calls and reloading the 
speedtch module after boot.  The workaround usually works, but not always.  
There is a lot more information in the bugzilla posts.  I have a theory that 
my slow processor is exciting race conditions which most users, with newer 
machines, do not see.

Keith