Weird drivers from ASUS? LAN & sound suddenly stops working

pingu · 11-02-2008, 08:14 AM

I have an ASUS M2A-VM, amd64, running Debian stable
Both sound and LAN are integrated,
Sound=Azalia, hda-intel
LAN=Realtek RTL8111/8168B

During installation (some 2 months ago) sound & LAN worked fine (network install). After first reboot none of them worked, upgraded to kernel 2.6.26 both LAN & sound worked. Unfortunately I don't remember if I used the legacy drivers that came with m/b or not.
Two problems arises today - only in Linux, running Windows never a problem (with sound & LAN then... ) :
1) After a month or so LAN sometimes didn't work at all, reboot could fix it but not always. The lights on the card doesn't light up, assigning valid ip manually does not help.
I tried installing legacy drivers but they wouldn't compile. After this try LAN never works.
This is all there is in /var/log/messages:

Code:

eth0: RTL8168b/8111b at 0xffffc20000324000, 00:1f:c6:b9:f3:c1, XID 38000000 IRQ 1278
r8169: eth0: link down
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready

And in syslog - when eth0 did NOT work:

Code:

Nov  2 12:26:56 localhost NetworkManager: <information>^Ieth0: Device is fully-supported using driver 'r8169'.

lsmod shows r8169 is loaded

2) Sound worked but I couldn't adjust recording level, therefore I installed legacy driver. It compiled, alsaconf ran, found the card & played a sound, fine. I still couldn't adjust recording level, and after a reboot there's no sound at all - /dev/dsp does not exist.
Message from Arts at startup says "sound server will continue..." so I believe alsa & arts are up & running?
Created /dev/dsp with "mknod -m666 /dev/dsp c 14 3" but still can't be found.
I am member of group audio
Alsaconf (as root) can't find any soundcard.
lsmod shows the modules are loaded (well, soundserver wouldn't run otherwise I believe):
edgar:~# lsmod |grep snd

Code:

snd_pcm_oss            42016  0
snd_mixer_oss          19072  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                82184  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              26128  1 snd_pcm
snd                    63944  4 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore              12192  1 snd
snd_page_alloc         13328  1 snd_pcm

Does anyone have experience with drivers from ASUS, are the buggy?
Or is there some other problem, then what?

aus9 · 11-03-2008, 01:39 AM

1) Network issue
I have r8169

The driver is provided by either the kernel direct or a loading module. As you show module is loaded we can move to networking script issues.

I am assuming you have no irq conflicts and one LAN cable to router. If you need a second eth for bridging or other purposes pls reply with more info ok?

I would prefer you run a stock standard Debian kernel as that way we can troubleshoot you better. So boot up such a kernel and lets try a few things.

I assume you know how to run su or sudo su etc

Commands to give info or try to start eth0 include

Code:

ifconfig (can be run as non-root)

ifconfig eth0 up 
ifup -a 
/etc/init.d/networking restart

You may need to check your /etc/network/interfaces

Since LAN is onboard can you go into bios and ensure it is still enabled please.

2) Sound issues

Try going back to a stock kernel again pls

you can raise your sound levels with mixer commands using root powers, include

alsamixer
kmix (if you have kde) (and there is bound to be a gnome mixer)

alternatively you could edit with root powers the file

---

what I am suggesting is the most recent kernels for your distro provide the drivers for your hardware inbuilt or inserted by a modprobe [modulename]

then with root run alsaconf
then with root run aslamixer to raise and set the volumes...unmute or mute etc

pingu · 11-03-2008, 03:14 AM

Thanks for your reply!
I am running a stock kernel, the upgrade to 2.6.26 was made with apt-get/synaptic. (Directly after finished net-install I selected lots of stuff, new kernel was automatically selected for me.)

1) I don't remember what happened exactly when I tried "ifup eth0" but it didn't work. (Can check again when I get home.)
Remember, also setting valid ip does not help - and card's lights doesn't lit up. At least one does as soon as there's a connection.
No irq-conflicts seen, LAN is enabled in BIOS.
And also, works everytime in Windows.

2) Sound: Yes it should be possible to change sound levels, tried a few mixers but input level didn't change. All other mixer-controls worked. Until, then, I installed ASUS drivers - now there is no sound at all and "no sound card found" with alsaconf.

farslayer · 11-03-2008, 01:23 PM

when LAN isn't working I would look at what the systems sees for your NIC. the system could be assigning it a different device node other than eth0.

cat /var/log/dmesg | grep -i eth

I recall some boards with nvidia chipsets would randomize the MAC for the NIC on each boot causing the device node of the NIC to change on every boot.. there was a BIOS setting to disable that 'security' function. Maybe your AMD chipset has a similar feature ?

I have also seen systems that wouls shuffle the Wireless, the NIC, and the Firewire network interface on boot.. you never knew which one would be /dev/eth0..

aus9 · 11-03-2008, 03:56 PM

farslayer

yes thats possible. solution may be to have a persistent /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

eg my contents is
# This file was automatically generated by the /lib/udev/write_net_rules
# program run by the persistent-net-generator.rules rules file.
#
# You can modify it, as long as you keep each rule on a single line.

# PCI device 0x10ec:0x8169 (r8169)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:0f:ea:53:00:0f", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"

2) if this is the first time you open it and have a peek and you find a eth1 when you only have need for one network lan,

do not delete the eth1 line but with root powers, change the eth1 to eth0 and delete the top line (old) eth0 line

pingu · 11-04-2008, 01:47 AM

Yesterday evening built-in nic worked... It's easier when it never works really!
Anyway I checked in /var/log/messages, eth0 is always referred with same mac-dress, and always with r8169.
I'll keep an eye on these things though, could still be something there.

How about the lost soundcard, any ideas here?

peeths003 · 11-04-2008, 03:20 AM

Hi ,

I am using the Same motherboard , initially i had some problem with installing the driver provided by Asus , and in some post i read that , it is always recomended that we update drivers from any of the trusted repo . Because the we wont get the drivers get updated. I use Fedora 9 and i had the issue with the display card.

That was maily because of the F9 X server , so in the later stage i installed a new nVidia card which solved all the issue that i had with the display card .

I still have the same issue with the n/w card been not recognised, but upon reboot it will fix the issue.

tredegar · 11-04-2008, 12:12 PM

Network Issue:
Some Realtek chipsets can be rendered unusable in linux if you have booted windows (I kid you not).

This causes real headaches as it is extra-difficult to work out what is going wrong - the network that was working suddenly stops. Powering off the computer COMPLETELY (unplug from mains, and remove battery if laptop) will fix it, but there's an easier way:

See this thread http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...roblem-591466/
Especially post #12 by dresb, which has the sweet solution.

pingu · 11-04-2008, 01:21 PM

Thanks, tredegar! I will try that - today nic still works fine, but then I haven't booted Windows in between.

Remains problem with soundcard, it was lost w/o booting Windows...