First off thank all of you for being such a helpful and inspiring community.

I've been trying to get my NIC card configured all day today. I'm running a Dell Dimension XPS R450 with Mandrake 10. I'm trying to set up a new connection with a 3Com 3c905 100BaseTX [Boomerang] ethernet card using the 3c59x driver.

My problem is, after installing a new lan connection, it'll say:
Shutting down interface eth0: [ok]
Sutting down loopback interface: [ok]
Setting network parameters: [ok]
Bringing up loopback interface: [ok]
Bringing up interface eth0: [FAILED]

when I check the message file in /var/log/ i find the following correlating to my Ethernet card:
localhost ifplugd(eth0)[925]: ifplugd 0.21binitializing.
localhost ifplugd(eth0)[925]: Using interface eth0/00:60:97:AF:FE:CD with driver <3c59x> (version: LK1.1.19)
localhost ifplugd(eth0)[925]: Using detection mode: SIOCGMIIPHY
localhost ifplugd(eth0)[925]: Initialization complete, link beat not detected.
localhost network: Bringing up interface eth0: failed

I really don't know where to go from here..
thanks for your time and help..

Run modprobe -v 3c905, or whatever the driver is called. (3c95x?) (Be logged in as root.)

See if you get the same error.

Is there a cable plugged into the card?
try put this in /etc/modules.conf
also check the output of "mii-tool -v eth0"
read /usr/src/linux/Documentation/networking/vortex.txt for more info.

If you want to get your 3com network card to work, but not
using dhcp, what you have to do is edit the file :

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

and put in the line :

MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=yes

this was already in my ifcfg-eth0 file, i just had to change it
from =no to =yes