First, I'll readily admit to being a Linux newbie. But I've been around Windoze for years. I've scanned the posted questions and could not find anything helpful. I've also scanned through How to ask questions the smart way... So here goes.

I've installed Red Hat 8.0 successfully with no problems except one. All devices are recognized, everything works except the NIC.

The NIC is a NetGear FA311. If I dual-boot into Win2k Pro, the NIC works fine.

Under RH8, modprobe lists the natsemi module as being loaded. If I modprobe natsemi, no error occurs.

If I use the gui version of ifconfig, all goes well until I click on "activate." An error is displayed: "activation was not successful" or something to that effect - no details about why.

If I use the command line version of ifconfig, no error is returned, but I still can't ping or anything.

So, can anyone suggest what I can do from this point to get the card working? I suspect the problem is at the keyboard, as I've also installed RH8 on two laptops that use 3com 3CXFE series pcmcia cards and both have exactly the same symptom.

Thanks for any guidance you can offer.

Bob

Could you post results of ifconfig and route commands?

lsmod, dmesg, ifconfig -a, and route output follow. Had to copy to diskette and use sneakernet since the Netgear NIC isn't working :-(

I noticed that the NIC is set to IRQ 0, so I suspect a problem with PCMCIA not reading IRQ's right. I'll try to assign the card manually to IRQ 3 or 5.

If you can point me to instructions on how RH Linux handles IRQ assignment, and how to resolve conflicts, I would appreciate it.

Or, if this is somehow normal, let me know where you think I should look next.

Thanks for all your help!

Bob



*
* lsmod output
*

[root@winlin root]# lsmod
Module Size Used by Not tainted
natsemi 18864 0
sr_mod 18136 0 (autoclean)
i810_audio 25224 0 (autoclean)
ac97_codec 13384 0 (autoclean) [i810_audio]
soundcore 6532 2 (autoclean) [i810_audio]
i810 72736 1
agpgart 43072 7 (autoclean)
binfmt_misc 7524 1
autofs 13348 0 (autoclean) (unused)
ipchains 42440 10
ide-scsi 10512 0
scsi_mod 107176 2 [sr_mod ide-scsi]
ide-cd 33608 0
cdrom 33696 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
mousedev 5524 0 (unused)
keybdev 2976 0 (unused)
hid 22244 0 (unused)
input 5888 0 [mousedev keybdev hid]
usb-uhci 26188 0 (unused)
usbcore 77024 1 [hid usb-uhci]
ext3 70368 1
jbd 52212 1 [ext3]
[root@winlin root]#


*
* dmesg output
*

[root@winlin root]# dmesg
Linux version 2.4.18-14 (bhcompile@stripples.devel.redhat.com) (gcc version 3.2
20020903 (Red Hat Linux 8.0 3.2-7)) #1 Wed Sep 4 13:35:50 EDT 2002
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f800 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009f800 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000e8400 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000000bef0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000bef0000 - 000000000beffc00 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 000000000beffc00 - 000000000bf00000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 000000000bf00000 - 000000000c000000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fff00000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
0MB HIGHMEM available.
190MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 48880
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 44784 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Kernel command line: ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi pci=biosirq
ide_setup: hdc=ide-scsi
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 465.267 MHz processor.
Speakup v-1.00 CVS: Tue Jun 11 14:22:53 EDT 2002 : initialized
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 923.24 BogoMIPS
Memory: 187876k/195520k available (1326k kernel code, 5732k reserved, 999k data, 212k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
ramfs: mounted with options: <defaults>
ramfs: max_pages=23675 max_file_pages=0 max_inodes=0 max_dentries=23675
Buffer cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
CPU: Before vendor init, caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000, vendor = 0
CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K
CPU: L2 cache: 128K
CPU: After vendor init, caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU: After generic, caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Intel Celeron (Mendocino) stepping 05
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfd9c0, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
Unknown bridge resource 2: assuming transparent
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
speakup: initialized device: /dev/synth, node (MAJOR 10, MINOR 25)
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16)
Starting kswapd
VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_6.5.0 initialized
pty: 2048 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
ttyS0 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS1 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
oprofile: mapping APIC.
oprofile: enabled local APIC. Err code 00000000
oprofile 0.2 loaded, major 254
block: 352 slots per queue, batch=88
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
PIIX4: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev f9
PIIX4: chipset revision 2
PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0x1800-0x1807, BIOS settings: hdaio, hdbio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0x1808-0x180f, BIOS settings: hdcio, hddio
hda: ST38410A, ATA DISK drive
hdc: LG CD-RW CED-8080B, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
blk: queue c03c0004, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
blk: queue c03c0004, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
hda: 16841664 sectors (8623 MB) w/512KiB Cache, CHS=1113/240/63, UDMA(33)
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 < hda5 >
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
NET4: Frame Diverter 0.46
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 1024 buckets, 8Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 32768)
Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Freeing initrd memory: 126k freed
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 212k freed
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 13:44:31 Sep 4 2002
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1f.2 to 64
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x1820, IRQ 11
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
hid-core.c: v1.8.1 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.18, 14 May 2002 on ide0(3,2), internal journal
Adding Swap: 408200k swap-space (priority -1)
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
Vendor: LG Model: CD-RW CED-8080B Rev: 1.06
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 [PCSPP,TRISTATE]
ohci1394: pci_module_init failed
ip_conntrack (1527 buckets, 12216 max)
Linux agpgart interface v0.99 (c) Jeff Hartmann
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 148M
agpgart: Detected an Intel i810 Chipset.
agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xf8000000
[drm] AGP 0.99 on Intel i810 @ 0xf8000000 64MB
[drm] Initialized i810 1.2.0 20010920 on minor 0
mtrr: base(0xf8000000) is not aligned on a size(0x180000) boundary
Intel 810 + AC97 Audio, version 0.22, 13:45:06 Sep 4 2002
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1f.5 to 64
i810: Intel ICH 82901AB found at IO 0x1300 and 0x1200, IRQ 9
i810_audio: Audio Controller supports 2 channels.
i810_audio: Defaulting to base 2 channel mode.
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: 0x4352:0x5933 (Cirrus Logic CS4299 rev C)
i810_audio: AC'97 codec 0 supports AMAP, total channels = 2
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 32x/32x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
natsemi.c:v1.07 1/9/2001 Written by Donald Becker <becker@scyld.com>
http://www.scyld.com/network/natsemi.html
(unofficial 2.4.x kernel port, version 1.07+LK1.0.14, Nov 27, 2001 Jeff Garzik, Tjeerd Mulder)
PCI: Enabling device 01:0e.0 (0304 -> 0307)
PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 01:0e.0.
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth0
eth0: NatSemi DP8381[56] at 0xcce7b000, 00:02:e3:23:63:e3, IRQ 0.
[root@winlin root]#

*
* ifconfig -a output
*

[root@winlin root]# ifconfig -a
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:02:E3:23:63:E3
BROADCAST NOTRAILERS MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Base address:0xb000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:232 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:232 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:15472 (15.1 Kb) TX bytes:15472 (15.1 Kb)


*
* route output
*

[root@winlin root]# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
[root@winlin root]#

rbaer,

your results of 'ifconfig -a' show no ip address. without an ip, you can't talk to the outside world. were you asked to pick one (or dhcp) during installation? from the command line (as the gui doesn't seem to be helping), try editing your interface configuration file (in debian, it's /etc/network/interfaces -- not sure about red hat). once you find it, you should see a line like this:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

if you're not going through a router, but directly to your modem, try adding the following lines:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

this should enable you to pick up an ip automatically from your isp.

also, irq=0 is actually a valid interupt, though i've never seen it used for a nic. you may indeed want to change it if the above doesn't work.

No luck. These aren't the right commands for Red Hat.

I don't think the NIC is working.

Any idea how to either force the IRQ to something more sane like 3 or 5?

I've checked the BIOS - this is an HP machine. There isn't a way to assign an IRQ to a specific slot like on other BIOS.

PCI under Red Hat 8 is detecting the board, but can't seem to find the IRQ. Forcing it to another IRQ in the config didn't work.

Any other ideas?

Thanks.

The NIC driver works incorrectly... You need to correct it yourself, I suppose. First, unload the module
rmmod natsemi
Then, find out (or guess) which IRQ is teh correct one and try for example:
modprobe natsemi irq=3
If there's an error, try with another IRQ until it loads correctly.

to get irq,

cat /proc/interrupts

Hi .. I am having something of the same problem. I have the FA311 Negear Card. What happens with me though is I dont even know how to load the driver module in to Linux. I am used RedHat 7.3. My IP is assigned through DHCP, and that is what I selected at install for RedHat 7.3. I have the natsemi driver and I do not know how to install it. Natsemi seems to be the new one used for the new Linux Kernal 2.4 ( I think ). If you guys could help me that would be great. I have been searching for at lease 3 hours for the answer and I found this message board topic through searching.
If you could help it would be MOST aprecieated. (bad spelling)

thanks!!!

Feel Free to contact me online. IT WOULD BE VERY GENEROUS.
Thanks again

--Chadian22

Hello Chadian22,

I did resolve the problem: I'm running an HP Pavillion box that is a coupe years old - only a 466. The Phoenix bios config screens have some key settings either missing, or in different places than they normally are. For example, the one that resolved my NetGear problem was the "Installed O/S" setting - it is now buried in the middle of the Advanced page, and needs to be set to "Other" for pci cards to work properly in Linux.

You can also check the Scyld site for installation instructions and further debugging - I found the solution to my problem there on the Expert page...

http://www.scyld.com/network/natsemi.html

Good luck!

Bob

Thanks a bunch!!! I will have to try it when I get home. I am at school right now and have been constantly checking for replies. You don't know how much I am thankful for the link and any advice you have given me. I will make sure to try it right away when I get home and post of my success with many thanks or more questions with still many thanks for anwers and solutions that may help. I am planning on setting up a Cs/Dod Server on the linux machine. It's a 450 Mhz. And only 64 MB of RAM. Anyone know how many people my computer will support in console of mode of redhat?? Any guess....

Thanks Again

I'll offer that my machine was very very slow with 64mb of RAM - slow enough that I watched the newspaper that first weekend I installed Red Hat 8.0 and went immediately to Best Buy to pick up another 128mb. Now it is fine... If you have an affordable way to get more memory I highly recommend it.

I am a little confused. Once I go to that link I am not sure of where to contine or what directions to fallow

For Rbaer's issue:
Okay... I might be missing something here.. but it appears that the module is loading properly, the NIC is getting what resources it needs, but he just hasn't configured his network.
Just try running "netconfig" as root and see if that doesn't help.

For Chadian22:
natsemi.o comes by default with RH v7.3.
Try an "insmod natsemi" and see if it loads.
Running "netconfig" should work for you too to get it set up permanently. If the first command worked, then run "rmmod natsemi" before running "netconfig"

-K.

P.S. You shouldn't have IRQ problems with modern PCI stuff. Thats ancient history.

Ok after I did all that stuff. that the previous message said. what do I do? Do I restart my computer, and run ifconfig? I will try that and post if I get blinking lights

I type in "insmod natsemi"
It comes back w/ "Using .../drivers/net/natsemi.o"

I type in rmmod and it either does nothing and comes back with the command field like nothing happened (such as just hitting enter and nothing happens) or it will say "Device is already in Use or Busy"

Then I go to netconfig. I select DHCP, because that is what my cable service uses. I restarted. Tried ifconfig, still only the loopback . My switch doesn't show blinking lights for the linux machine either.. all cables are good and have been checked. My cable service has given me 2 IP's .. one for this computer and one for the other. So that's not a problem. Something still needs help with the config. Any other suggestions would be great! Thanks a lot for the posts so far. I am feel like I am getting very warm.