New network interface card not working
 

I'm running Debian, kernel 2.6.18-4-686 as a web server that I play around with and do some development on. The on board ethernet stopped working, and I can't get networking going again.

I tried disabling the on board ethernet through the bios and installing a new card. I then set up a static ip address manually by editing /etc/network/interfaces. lspci show this:

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Xpress 200 Host Bridge (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:12.0 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc ATI 4379 Serial ATA Controller (rev 80)
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (rev 80)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (rev 80)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (rev 80)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 SMBus Controller (rev 81)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller ATI (rev 80)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-ISA Bridge (rev 80)
00:14.4 PCI Bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-ISA Bridge (rev 80)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS400 [Radeon Xpress 200]
02:0a.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 80)
02:0e.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6105 [Rhine-III] (rev 86)

eth0 shows up when I do an 'ifconfig', but, I can't ping my router, or connect to the network in general. If I do a 'ping google.com', it just seems to get stuck for a while before eventually giving me an 'unknown host google.com'.

Not sure how to troubleshoot this, any help would be appreciated. I would reformat the machine and start over, but I have files on there that I would rather not lose and don't know how to remove without a network.

Did you added the default GW?
route add default gw xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Thanks for the reply. I tried typing route add default gw 192.168.1.1, but it said, SIOCADDRT: File exists.

If I type route, it says

localhost | * | 255.255.255.0 | U | 0 | 0 | 0 | eth0
default | 192.168.1.1 | 0.0.0.0 | UG | 0 | 0 | 0 | eth0

Please post your /etc/network/interfaces file.
What is the LAN IP number of your router?
What is the output of ifconfig eth0 ?

OK, my gateway is 192.168.1.1

Here is my /etc/network/interfaces

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.198
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.1
broadcast 192.168.1.255
gateway 192.168.1.1
# dsn-* options are implemented by the resolvconf package, if installed
dns-nameservers 192.168.1.1
dns-search [XXXXXXX]

Here is the output of ifconfig eth0:

eth0 Link encap:UNSPEC HWaddr [.....................]
inet addr:192.168.1.198 BCast: 192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:92 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:5019 (4.9 KiB)

Thanks.
A couple of things seem strange:

I don't need any of the stuff in red above. Maybe take that out. And the green bits do not match.

I do need the following in /etc/resolv.conf

nameserver 192.168.1.1

(Where 192.168.1.1 is the LAN IP of your router)

But I also see:
This is very odd. Your first post said "The on board ethernet stopped working" - how can you know this for sure? Maybe the fault is at the other end (the router, or the cable.)

- Have you tried using a different ethernet cable?
- Have you tried using a different socket on your router?
- Can you try using a different router?

Possibly useless as your eth0 is listed by ifconfig, but does the output of lsmod | grep rhine list the correct module?

I took out both the red and the green lines, and confirmed that /etc/resolv.conf does have this entry, then I rebooted the computer, but no effect ...

I believe, but cannot say with certainty, that the on board ethernet was not working, and I disabled it in the BIOS. To test the network, I took the cable out and connected it to a working laptop. The laptop connects to the network successfully.

The output of this is:
via_rhine | 22664 | 0
mii | 5344 | via_rhine

Well, I am stuck now.
You have verified
- The cable is good.
- The router socket is good.
- The correct module is loaded.

What happens if you try the following (as root)

By any chance a firewall?

I am not sure :( I couldn't figure out what was going on, it wasn't a firewall issue as nothing had changed really (so far as I could tell).

I ended up really damaging the system, including eventually destroying my grub loader, so at this point it's beyond repair :(. I ended up downloading Ubuntu, booted into a live session off of the cd (it detected the nic successfully), and used SSH to get my files off of the server so I can do a rebuild now. I wish I knew why I couldn't get the ethernet card working manually, but I guess I'll leave that mystery for another day. Thanks to everybody for the ideas and help.