Problem with D-Link DFE-530TX & Mandrake 10

GChris · 07-26-2004, 09:56 AM

I tried to install a D-Link DFE-530TX network card into my Mandrake 10 machine this weekend.

At first it seemed to go well - the card was detected during boot (using the via-rhine driver), and I went through all the questions that DrakConnect asks to set-up the card.

Linux booted up, and I opened a command line prompt to attempt a test ping to see if network connectivity was working and everything froze while I was still typing the command. Nothing worked at all, couldn't move the mouse, couldn't switch to one of the command prompt screens, couldn't even Ctrl+Alt+Del reset, so I had to do a hardware reset.

When it booted after this it decided that the card was no longer present and removed the driver for it! I can no longer get Linux to auto-detect the card and attempting to manually select the via-rhine driver doesn't find any cards either.

I haven't been able to test the card in Windows yet, since the only version of Windows I have on that box is Win95. There were some drivers on the supplied driver disc for '95 but they needed a newer version of the Windows installer than I have to install!

I should hopefully be able to get a copy of the new installer onto the machine in the next couple of days, and test it in Windows (which should at least confirm the card is physically okay). For what it's worth Windows does detect that the card exists, it just doesn't know what to do with it.

In the meantime, does this sound like a problem anyone here has encountered? (and hopefully solved?)

RoofRabbit · 07-27-2004, 01:57 AM

I use the DFE-538TX cards for both Mandrake (all releases) and windows. These cards work great.
If the card you have shows up in Mandrake's network whizard, it's probably just an ip/netmask or workgroup name problem. This page might be of help:
http://roofrabbit.com/xwinnetwork.html

GChris · 07-27-2004, 05:56 AM

After it removed the via-rhine driver it did add a generic looking entry in it's place, but this is unusable and seems to be just a placeholder that acknowledges that there's a card in there, but that it is unrecognisable. It's just weird that it detected it the first time then removed it. I'm quite worried that the card died on the first attempt to use it (which will be a pain since I bought it ages ago and only got around to fitting it this weekend). The only way to be sure, I suppose will be to try and get it working in Windows with the manufacturer's own drivers. I'll have a chance to try this tonight, I think, so I'll report back with any success (or lack thereof).