I've set up a "new" mandrake box - Celeron 1000, P6VEMD mobo. The mobo is new, rest is recycled.

Under Windows, problem with Built In sound but networking worked OK. Under Mandrake 10.1 I cannot get networking started. (rtl8139, on board)

During boot it reports "failed" in initialising eth0. The DHCP server (Winroute on a Win98 box) shows the computer hardware address and name but 0 time to expire.

I've tried adding another card (RTL8029) as eth1. Same symptoms. I've changed cables, no effect.

Wiped Linux, installed a quick Win98, networking OK. Wiped Windows, reinstalled Linux, same problems. I remember having a similar problem on my first Mandrake installation but cannot remember how I solved it and cannot find my questions on the forums.

I am using the wizards and suspect that they are doing something wrong. Can somebody point me to the files I may need to edit manually?

I have tried using my existing Mandrake installation as a "template" but no luck.

Help appreciated as this box is destined to replace the Win 98 one as a Comms Server.

ther is daemon which runs in background called ifplugd in mandrake

kil that by

ifplugd -k

and if u succeed then remove that package itself

Something is happening, I just don't know what!

I killed ifplugd. No joy. Tried to reconfigure networking. No luck. Rebooted. No luck. Killed ifplugd again.

Could not see how to remove it so I renamed the /etc/ifplugd directory.

Removed the eth1 card and rebooted. ifplugd did not seem to be up because I got an error message when I tried to kill it. Reconfigured the eth0 connection and restarted the network. Still no connection BUT the DHCP server showed the host name as Rama (the old name which, while experimenting, I have changed to Danube.

Rebooted. During boot got this:

Bringing up interface eth0: zcip[2745] : Retrieved address 127.255.255.255 for eth0:9
zcip[2745] sending probe 1 for 127.255.255.255
ditto for probe 2 and 3, then
zcip[2745] claiming ownership of 127.255.255.255
zcip[2745]: watching for collisions.

I've never seen this before! The address should have been 192.168.0.x (x = 2 to 20)

Can anybody advise? Also how can I get rid of ifplugd? I don't need it as this is a desktop PC.

hi there

try this

give a static IP address

try pinging ur DHCP server

regards

Did that. eth0 initialised OK but pings do not work either direction. (swapped cables and hub positions too)

so get ur DHCP right
can u ping from windows
maybe ICMP is disallowed on DHCP server

regards

All the other machines on the network 1 Linux, 5 Windows can ping each other. It's only this one that won't talk to _any_ or them. And yet it worked OK with Win98.

I added
acpi=off noapic

to the append line in lilo and it's up and running.

Not sure whether the acpi=off is necessary, adding apic did the trick. I found hints in google searches that this might help.

Thanks to all who tried to help.

Now I need to find out what apic means....

ACPI - Advanced Configuration and Power Interface

I was looking for the meaning of life, the universe and APIC.

Although I couldn't find a definition it seems to stand for Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller, used on SMTP systems, and some boards are "broken" in that they lead Linux to believe they can use it, but can't.

With my luck, I have one of those mobos.

this is from the kernel config

"ACPI Support (ACPI)

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support for
Linux requires an ACPI compliant platform (hardware/firmware),
and assumes the presence of OS-directed configuration and power
management (OSPM) software. This option will enlarge your
kernel by about 70K.

Linux ACPI provides a robust functional replacement for several
legacy configuration and power management interfaces, including
the Plug-and-Play BIOS specification (PnP BIOS), the
MultiProcessor Specification (MPS), and the Advanced Power
Management (APM) specification. If both ACPI and APM support
are configured, whichever is loaded first shall be used.

The ACPI SourceForge project contains the latest source code,
documentation, tools, mailing list subscription, and other
information. This project is available at:
<http://sourceforge.net/projects/acpi>

Linux support for ACPI is based on Intel Corporation's ACPI
Component Architecture (ACPI CA). For more information see:
<http://developer.intel.com/technology/iapc/acpi>

ACPI is an open industry specification co-developed by Compaq,
Intel, Microsoft, Phoenix, and Toshiba. The specification is
available at:
<http://www.acpi.info>
"