Xircom/Intel ethernet card interface disappears suddenly
 

Hello,

I finally successfully installed frugal Puppy 4.2 onto my 128 RAM, 6GB IBM ThinkPad a20m old laptop. This is the newest possible distro I could use, that sees my HD. Lucid 520 doesn't. That is why I chose 4.2

Everything is great! Love the distro.

However,the ethernet combo card (presume Xircom/Intel as per manuf. manual)only appears for about 5-10 minutes. From this it is clear: not a hardware issue. Card works.

First looks like this:

Ethernet eth0 PCI: Inter Ethernet 100

Stays like that for a while. Then Internet is gone. Back to Network Wizard.

Now looks like this:

Ethernet eth0 PCI:_______________

Nothing, no description for PCI.

I am not sure what module it needs to continue recognizing the card.

I have loaded e1000e-0.4.1.12-k2.6.25.16.pet to, hopefully, update something.Rebooted. Same problem persists.

Tried "wrapping" the manufacturer's WIN driver NET82557.INF to no avail. Even wrapped additional driver for JUST Ethernet part of the combo, and no luck.

What should I do now? What is best? Downgrade to retro version with older kernel to reconfigure an ancient Etherner/56K combo card I have? Or just get an additional kernel? Should I use Wary 500 that promises many kernels and almost all possible modules?

Or to simply use some other OS suitable for my particular PC?

I love Puppy and do not want to part with it. It is light, cute, very functional and easy to figure out. Well, except for the Ethernet card in my case :)

Any suggestions are WELCOME!!!!

I would make a list of the loaded modules when the Ethernet card is working and another list of the loaded modules when the Ethernet card is not working. Then compare the two lists to see if there are any differences.
I would also look at the system message log immediately after the card malfunctions to see if there are any helpful error messages.
It might also help shed light on the problem if you tried some other live CD distributions just to see if the problem occurs with any of them. You would not have to install them, just run them from the CD.

Try a different Network Manager maybe.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=64472

I had problems with wireless dropping out till I quit using the default Network manager in Puppy and went with frisbee.

Edit: By the way. I run Puppy 5.2 on my IBM A22m. Wireless is via a PCMCIA Belkin F5D 7010 ver.6. I ran Puppy 4 Dingo and Puppy 5.1.1 on it previously.