Hi,

My laptop specs are as follows:

CPU Intel Celeron 1.1GHz
Memory 256 MB SODIMM
Hard Drive 30 GB UDMA
CD Drive 4x 4x 6x 24x Toshiba SD-2002 DVD/CDRW combination drive
Floppy Drive 1.44mb 3.5" Drive
Screen 14.1" TFT (Native Res.1024x768)
Video Card SiS 630 8Mb shared + TV Out
Sound Card SiS 7018 integrated
Speaker Stereo Internal
Modem Smart Link 56k HAMR56-V2.84
Network Card SiS 900 integrated fast ethernet
PC Card 2 x Type I/II, 1 x Type III
Ports 1x Infrared
1x Kensington lock
1x USB 1.1
1x RJ-11 modem
1x PS/2
1x Microphone
1x Headphone
1x External VGA
1x Serial
1x Parallel
1x RJ-45 network
Battery Info Smart Li-ion (Li-Ion)

The problem I am having is that whenever I put the ethernet cable into the laptop, the system completely freezes up. Neither the mouse nor the keys will respond. Only thing to do is restart the entire system. I thought this could be a problem with my laptop NIC card and tried using my Netgear M521 wireless PCMCIA card with Ndiswrapper to connect to my network. Upon connecting the same thing happens - the whole system freezes.

I have tried Gentoo, VLOS, Ubuntu, Debian and SUSE - the same problem happens in all flavours. I am currently downloading Fedora Core 4 to see if it will work.

I have attempted to use DHCP and set the IP manually - both freeze the system.

Does anyone have any insight as to how I can get internet on my laptop please?

With thanks

N

Gee I have the same ethernet device you state (rev level may be different);

00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet (rev 91)

Works just fine. My laptop is an Acer Aspire 5002WLMI, what's yours????

You can also have a look here for possible help;
http://www.linux-laptop.net/
http://tuxmobil.org/

Thanks for the reply. My laptop is an Advent 6417. What OS are you running? I'm wondering if it's the kernel that's the problem but I have NO idea how to diagnose if it is, let alone fix it.

Thanks

Well the Linux distribution is CentOS-4.2 (a freely available RHEL4 clone) with the latest vanilla kernel from kernel.org (2.6.15). I do not think it's is a distribution problem but rather an IRQ problem or a buggy BIOS problem. Choose one and have look at the output of the command; cat /proc/interrupts

Mine;
$ cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 138791350 IO-APIC-edge timer
1: 66928 IO-APIC-edge i8042
8: 0 IO-APIC-edge rtc
11: 126995 IO-APIC-level acpi
12: 5724898 IO-APIC-edge i8042
14: 119743 IO-APIC-edge ide0
15: 1236687 IO-APIC-edge ide1
16: 1 IO-APIC-level yenta
18: 3087556 IO-APIC-level ndiswrapper
19: 0 IO-APIC-level SiS SI7012, SiS SI7013 Modem
20: 0 IO-APIC-level ehci_hcd:usb1
21: 0 IO-APIC-level ohci_hcd:usb2
22: 0 IO-APIC-level ohci_hcd:usb3
NMI: 118223
LOC: 138775780
ERR: 0
MIS: 0

Many times this can provide a clue, some devices do not like to share interrupts well. For example your video and network devices. The output from /var/log/dmesg and other log files may help in figuring out where the problem is.

Thank you for your reply

My command $ cat /proc/interrupts returns:
CPU0
0: 206907 XT-PIC timer
1: 105 XT-PIC i8042
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
7: 1 XT-PIC parport0
8: 1 XT-PIC rtc
9: 0 XT-PIC ohci_hcd, ohci_hcd
10: 10 XT-PIC eth0
11: 8345 XT-PIC Trident Audio, yenta
12: 3419 XT-PIC i8042
14: 5412 XT-PIC ide0
15: 832 XT-PIC ide1
NMI: 0
LOC: 206818
ERR: 0
MIS: 0

and the output from /var/log/dmesg returns:

Linux version 2.6.8.1-3-386 (buildd@terranova) (gcc version 3.3.4 (Debian 1:3.3. 4-9ubuntu5)) #1 Tue Oct 12 12:41:57 BST 2004
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000e8000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000000f7f0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000f7f0000 - 000000000f7f8000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 000000000f7f8000 - 000000000f800000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ffef0000 - 00000000fff00000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
247MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 63472
DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:1
Normal zone: 59376 pages, LIFO batch:14
HighMem zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:1
DMI 2.3 present.
ACPI disabled because your bios is from 97 and too old
You can enable it with acpi=force
Built 1 zonelists
Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda1 ro vga=771 quiet splash
Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- reenabling.
Found and enabled local APIC!
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 1024 (order 10: 8192 bytes)
Detected 1097.320 MHz processor.
Using tsc for high-res timesource
Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Memory: 244332k/253888k available (1336k kernel code, 8820k reserved, 728k data, 204k init, 0k highmem)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Calibrating delay loop... 2170.88 BogoMIPS
Security Scaffold v1.0.0 initialized
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
CPU: After generic identify, caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: After vendor identify, caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K
CPU: L2 cache: 128K
CPU: After all inits, caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000 00000040
CPU: Intel Celeron (Coppermine) stepping 0a
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
Checking for popad bug... OK.
enabled ExtINT on CPU#0
ESR value before enabling vector: 00000000
ESR value after enabling vector: 00000000
Using local APIC timer interrupts.
calibrating APIC timer ...
..... CPU clock speed is 1097.0112 MHz.
..... host bus clock speed is 99.0737 MHz.
checking if image is initramfs...it isn't (ungzip failed); looks like an initrd
Freeing initrd memory: 4116k freed
NET: Registered protocol family 16
EISA bus registered
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfdb31, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20040816
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
PnPBIOS: Scanning system for PnP BIOS support...
PnPBIOS: Found PnP BIOS installation structure at 0xc00f7a10
PnPBIOS: PnP BIOS version 1.0, entry 0xf0000:0x67e4, dseg 0xf0000
PnPBIOS: 15 nodes reported by PnP BIOS; 15 recorded by driver
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
Uncovering SIS18 that hid as a SIS503 (compatible=0)
Enabling SiS 96x SMBus.
PCI: Using IRQ router SIS [1039/0018] at 0000:00:01.0
PCI: IRQ 0 for device 0000:00:03.0 doesn't match PIRQ mask - try pci=usepirqmask
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:03.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 0000:00:01.4
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
devfs: 2004-01-31 Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
devfs: boot_options: 0x0
Initializing Cryptographic API
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 54 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 8250
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 0000:00:01.6
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 0000:00:01.1
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 8192K size 1024 blocksize
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard on isa0060/serio0
EISA: Probing bus 0 at eisa0
EISA: Detected 0 cards.
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 32768)
NET: Registered protocol family 8
NET: Registered protocol family 20
RAMDISK: cramfs filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 4116 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (cramfs filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 204k freed
vesafb: framebuffer at 0xd0000000, mapped to 0xd001c000, size 937k
vesafb: mode is 800x600x8, linelength=800, pages=15
vesafb: protected mode interface info at ca5f:0008
vesafb: scrolling: redraw
fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 100x37
thermal: Unknown symbol acpi_processor_set_thermal_limit
NET: Registered protocol family 1
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
SIS5513: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:00.1
SIS5513: chipset revision 208
SIS5513: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
SIS5513: SiS630 ATA 100 (1st gen) controller
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xff00-0xff07, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xff08-0xff0f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
hda: FUJITSU MHN2300AT, ATA DISK drive
Using anticipatory io scheduler
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 58605120 sectors (30005 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=58140/16/63, UDMA(33)
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 p2 < p5 >
hdc: UJDA710, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Adding 500936k swap on /dev/hda5. Priority:-1 extents:1
EXT3 FS on hda1, internal journal
Synaptics Touchpad, model: 1
Firmware: 4.1
Sensor: 8
new absolute packet format
input: SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad on isa0060/serio1
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
hdc: ATAPI 24X DVD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
ts: Compaq touchscreen protocol output
parport: PnPBIOS parport detected.
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778), irq 7, dma 3 [PCSPP,TRISTATE,COMPAT,ECP,DMA ]
lp0: using parport0 (interrupt-driven).
Capability LSM initialized
device-mapper: 4.1.0-ioctl (2003-12-10) initialised: dm@uk.sistina.com
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
hdc: packet command error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: packet command error: error=0x50
cdrom: open failed.
Real Time Clock Driver v1.12
input: PC Speaker
inserting floppy driver for 2.6.8.1-3-386
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a National Semiconductor PC87306
Linux agpgart interface v0.100 (c) Dave Jones
agpgart: Detected SiS 630 chipset
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 196M
agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xe0000000
sis900.c: v1.08.07 11/02/2003
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 0000:00:01.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 0000:00:01.6
eth0: Realtek RTL8201 PHY transceiver found at address 1.
eth0: Using transceiver found at address 1 as default
eth0: SiS 900 PCI Fast Ethernet at 0xd000, IRQ 10, 00:a0:cc:c6:84:13.
usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new driver hub
ohci_hcd: 2004 Feb 02 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver (PCI)
ohci_hcd: block sizes: ed 64 td 64
PCI: IRQ 9 for device 0000:00:01.2 doesn't match PIRQ mask - try pci=usepirqmask
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 0000:00:01.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 0000:00:01.3
ohci_hcd 0000:00:01.2: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:01.2: irq 9, pci mem d0217000
ohci_hcd 0000:00:01.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 3 ports detected
PCI: IRQ 9 for device 0000:00:01.3 doesn't match PIRQ mask - try pci=usepirqmask
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 0000:00:01.3
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 0000:00:01.2
ohci_hcd 0000:00:01.3: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (#2)
ohci_hcd 0000:00:01.3: irq 9, pci mem d0219000
ohci_hcd 0000:00:01.3: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 3 ports detected
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:01.4
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 0000:00:03.0
cpci_hotplug: CompactPCI Hot Plug Core version: 0.2
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
pciehp: acpi_pciehprm:get_device PCI ROOT HID fail=0x1001
shpchp: acpi_shpchprm:get_device PCI ROOT HID fail=0x1001
Linux Kernel Card Services
options: [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:03.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 0000:00:01.4
Yenta: CardBus bridge found at 0000:00:03.0 [1584:3000]
Yenta: ISA IRQ mask 0x0030, PCI irq 11
Socket status: 30000007
eth0: Media Link Off
NET: Registered protocol family 17

Now I have little idea of what I'm looking for but does that show up any problems?

Thank a lot for your help

N

Do my system stats reveal anything about my problem?

Cheers

Nothing pops out as a problem. But I do see somethings that may be clues;

PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 0000:00:01.3
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 0000:00:01.2

pciehp: acpi_pciehprm:get_device PCI ROOT HID fail=0x1001
shpchp: acpi_shpchprm:get_device PCI ROOT HID fail=0x1001

Linux Kernel Card Services
options: [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 0000:00:03.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 0000:00:01.4

I also see that you seem to have three usb ports(hub 1-0:1.0: 3 ports detected), but only 2 are registered(9: 0 XT-PIC ohci_hcd, ohci_hcd). And then this;

ACPI disabled because your bios is from 97 and too old
You can enable it with acpi=force

If you have acpi support available with the kernel then try the suggestion. Other then that you may have better luck using a distro that still uses a 2.4 kernel sersies like slackware.