ethernet doesnt work although linux recognises it

RHEL 4.3 recognises my ethernet card, and autoconfigured the driver to use. (Nvidia mobo with onboard ethernet, driver is forcedeth).

lspci:

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a2)
00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 1 (rev a2)
00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 5 (rev a2)
00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 4 (rev a2)
00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:00.6 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 3 (rev a2)
00:00.7 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation C51 Memory Controller 2 (rev a2)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge (rev a2)
00:09.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Host Bridge (rev a2)
00:0a.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 LPC Bridge (rev a3)
00:0a.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP51 SMBus (rev a3)
00:0a.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Memory Controller 0 (rev a3)
00:0b.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0b.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP51 USB Controller (rev a3)
00:0d.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 IDE (rev a1)
00:0e.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:0f.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Serial ATA Controller (rev a1)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 PCI Bridge (rev a2)
00:10.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP51 High Definition Audio (rev a2)
00:14.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP51 Ethernet Controller (rev a3)
03:05.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Agere Systems FW323 (rev 70)

I've configured the usual IP and dns setup. However, when I try accessing the network, it doesn't work. ifconfig below shows tx packers getting dropped at a rate of 100%. dmesg also has some error output. Unfortunately I have no idea what they mean. Would appreciate any help.

ifconfig:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1A:92:29:70:58  
          inet addr:192.168.0.57  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21a:92ff:fe29:7058/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:199 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:63 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:34202 (33.4 KiB)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0xc000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:1433 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1433 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:1451735 (1.3 MiB)  TX bytes:1451735 (1.3 MiB)

dmesg:

eth0: no IPv6 routers present
NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
eth0: Got tx_timeout. irq: 00000000
eth0: Ring at 374e7000: next 63 nic 0
eth0: Dumping tx registers
  0: 00000000 000000ff 00000003 02c203ca 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
 20: 00000000 f0000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
 40: 0420e20e 0000a455 00002e20 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
 60: 00000000 00000000 00000000 0000ffff 0000ffff 0000ffff 0000ffff 00000000
 80: 003b0f3c 00000001 00000000 007f0028 0000061c 00000001 00000000 00007f1a
 a0: 0016070f 00000016 29921a00 00005870 00000001 00000000 d600cccd 0000a68f
 c0: 10000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001
 e0: 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001
100: 374e7800 374e7000 007f003f 00000000 00010064 00000000 0000000a 374e7be0
120: 374e7080 37c0b202 a0000029 36d4f810 8000061c 374e780c 374e77ac 00200010
140: 00304120 00002200 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
160: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
180: 00000006 00000008 019478ed 00008103 00000025 000045e1 019478ed 0000c5e3
1a0: 00000006 00000008 019478ed 00008103 00000025 000045e1 019478ed 0000c5e3
1c0: 00000006 00000008 019478ed 00008103 00000025 000045e1 019478ed 0000c5e3
1e0: 00000006 00000008 019478ed 00008103 00000025 000045e1 019478ed 0000c5e3
200: 00007770 bb993162 00203000 000003c0 00000000 00000000 f1c8daf0 0000003f
220: 00000000 00000000 00000000 0312e124 00803000 ffc0203c 001fffff 00000000
240: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
260: 00000000 00000000 fe020001 00000100 00803000 ffc0203c fe1fffff 00000100
280: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
2a0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
2c0: 00000000 00000000 00000003 00000001 0000009d 00000000 00000001 00000001
2e0: 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001
300: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
320: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
340: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
360: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
380: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
3a0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
3c0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
3e0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
eth0: Dumping tx ring
000: 00000000 37f60c02 a0000029 // 00000000 36e97802 a0000059 // 00000000 37f60a02 a000004d // 00000000 37f43402 a0000029
004: 00000000 37f43202 a0000045 // 00000000 37f41e02 a0000029 // 00000000 37f41c02 a0000029 // 00000000 37f41602 a0000029
008: 00000000 0207ac02 a0000045 // 00000000 0207aa02 a0000029 // 00000000 02079a02 a0000045 // 00000000 0207a602 a0000029
00c: 00000000 02079c02 a0000029 // 00000000 0207ae02 a0000029 // 00000000 37c07802 a0000029 // 00000000 37c11a02 a0000029
010: 00000000 37c10202 a0000029 // 00000000 37c11202 a0000029 // 00000000 37c09402 a0000029 // 00000000 37c10c02 a0000029
014: 00000000 37c09802 a0000029 // 00000000 37c11402 a0000029 // 00000000 37c11c02 a0000029 // 00000000 37c0fe02 a0000029
018: 00000000 37c11e02 a0000029 // 00000000 37c09202 a0000029 // 00000000 37f41402 a0000029 // 00000000 37c11602 a0000029
01c: 00000000 37c09e02 a0000029 // 00000000 37c10802 a0000029 // 00000000 37c10602 a0000029 // 00000000 37c09c02 a0000029
020: 00000000 37c10402 a0000029 // 00000000 37c07a02 a0000029 // 00000000 37c11802 a0000029 // 00000000 37c07e02 a0000029
024: 00000000 37c07c02 a0000029 // 00000000 37c0b202 a0000029 // 00000000 37c0bc02 a0000029 // 00000000 37c0c402 a0000029
028: 00000000 37c0c602 a0000029 // 00000000 37c07602 a0000029 // 00000000 37c0b402 a0000029 // 00000000 37c9dc02 a0000029
02c: 00000000 37c09a02 a0000029 // 00000000 37c9d602 a0000029 // 00000000 37c9d402 a0000029 // 00000000 37c09602 a0000029
030: 00000000 37c0ba02 a0000029 // 00000000 37c0be02 a0000029 // 00000000 37c0b602 a0000029 // 00000000 37c0b802 a0000029
034: 00000000 37c9d802 a0000029 // 00000000 37c0c202 a0000029 // 00000000 37c10a02 a0000029 // 00000000 37ce2e02 a0000029
038: 00000000 37ce2c02 a0000029 // 00000000 37c9d202 a0000029 // 00000000 37ce2802 a0000029 // 00000000 37c9da02 a0000029
03c: 00000000 37ce2202 a0000029 // 00000000 37ce2602 a0000029 // 00000000 37cdee02 a0000029 // 00000000 00000000 00000000
eth0: tx_timeout: dead entries!

Interesting - this in 2006 (April)
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2.../msg00076.html

It is a known bug with a long history:
http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/bugm...il/004184.html
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/lin...07.2/0073.html
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/lin...09.3/1610.html
http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/2/7/190
... in this last, problem was solved with updated BIOS.

There's a cute discussion of this issue in Gentoo Forums:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-320241.html
... includes several other options.

Good luck.

Damn. Why can't hardware manufacturers add some Linux support... Oh well, thanks for drawing my attention to the bug, I'll see what I can do tomorrow with it.

http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/6/17/157
... a possible patch

http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/6/18/14
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=68143
... some suggestion that other OS's are affected by this problem also.

I already have a mental note to avoid nvidia chipset mobos.
Watching the intel boards with interest.

Thanks to Simon, I'm writing this post from Linux. The workaround was successful. I'll leave it unpatched for now, I've got enough on my plate as it is. Again, thanks.

Cool! Which one did you use?

Turning the main power off and on again. That seemed to have the highest chance of initial success, since Linux seemed to already have everything configured from the OS/software side.