Realtek 8139 Problems on Mandrake 10.0

dariog · 10-23-2005, 10:54 PM

Hi,

I have been tearing my hair out trying to get a LAN connection on a fresh install of Mandrake 10.0.

It detects my network card OK (Realtek 8139) - and it comes up as an option in the configuration center.

However, at startup, when I press Esc for verbose mode, it comes up with:

eth0 [FAILED]

And when I open a terminal, do su root and ifconfig, eth0 is not there, just "lo" (which I assume is loopback?)

I thought it could be a problem with the cabling, but I have a link light at both my router and network card. I have also had the LAN working in Windows XP, Ubuntu, and Knoppix.

I have tried googling and lots of forums, but everyone seems to be getting the card in ifconfig - I don't know how to make it appear.

Help?

bathory · 10-24-2005, 02:14 AM

Run

Code:

lsmod|grep 8139too

to see if it loads the driver for your nic. If not then load it manually:

Code:

modprobe 8139too

and try to configure the card with ifconfig etc. If it works, use these commands in a startup script to configure your nic at boot.

dariog · 10-24-2005, 02:23 AM

Code:

lsmod|grep 8139too

returns 2 listings, I assume this means it is loading the card?

I ran the second command, no output.

How do I configure with ifconfig I have just been using it to view the interfaces, and even after modprobe it just returns the "lo", no ethernet interface there at all.

bathory · 10-24-2005, 02:48 AM

Run:

Code:

dmesg|grep eth0

to see if there are any errors on boot. To configure your nic by hand run:

Code:

ifconfig eth0 xx.xx.xx.xx netmask yy.yy.yy.yy up

if you have a static IP.
Or use your distro's network tools to configure and bring up the interface if you use dhcp.

dariog · 10-24-2005, 03:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by bathory
Run:

Code:

dmesg|grep eth0

to see if there are any errors on boot.

Returns 2 lines: the first saying it has detected a Realtek Network card, and giving the MAC address and IRQ number, and the second saying it detected the 8139 chipset. So, no errors?

Quote:

To configure your nic by hand run:

Code:

ifconfig eth0 xx.xx.xx.xx netmask yy.yy.yy.yy up

if you have a static IP.
Or use your distro's network tools to configure and bring up the interface if you use dhcp.

I have used the configuration utility in Mandrake a number of times to set it up - it never seems to do anything.

Code:

ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

Tells me:

Code:

SIOCSIFFLAGS: Function not implemented

(twice)

I'm assuming the xx.xx.xx.xx is my gateway address? I have a DI-524 router, everything usually auto-detects by DHCP so I assume it uses that, even though I really have no idea what is going on

Thanks for your help by the way!

bathory · 10-24-2005, 04:00 AM

xx.xx.xx.xx is your IP and yy.yy.yy.yy is your gateway. Anyway take a look at this thread, perhaps it'll help you.

Dommy · 10-24-2005, 06:57 PM

I suspect your card is working but not set up correctly have a look at this page http://www.scyld.com/rtl8139.html#diag if you get the mii_diag program from this page http://scyld.com/ethercard_diag.html you can check the current setup which most likely shows that the speed is set to zero or some such I've had this problem on and off with both the 8139 and DEC ether cards since RH 5.4

dariog · 10-24-2005, 08:23 PM

No dice with playing around with the eth0 config file as described in that other thread.

I really have no idea about the second ink and the drivers. I'm attempting to change cards, as I think I'm not likely to be able to download and compile whatever drivers it needs without the lan connection first