Turn off the modem for 10-15 minutes when disconnecting the ethernet cable from the laptop and connecting it to the desktop (or vice-versa).

Tried ;powering off the modem when switching, no change in behaviour.
Tried
#dhcpcd eth0 got
#err, eth0:ioctl SIOCGIFHWADDR: No such device
then did
#dmesg | grep -i eth and get
driver 'st' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
driver 'sr' needs updating - please use bus_type methods

Then did
#tail -f /var/log/messages
and got six messages about [fglrx] and then:
Jul 26 08:44:38 host dbus-daemon: Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_c all", sender=":1.10" (uid=1000 pid-3747 comm="xfce4-power-manager ") interface=org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.SystemPowerManagement" member="JustToCheck" error name ="(unset)" requested_reply=0 destination="org.freedesktop.Hal" (uid=0 pid=3491 comm="/usr/sbin/hald --daemon=yes "))
Jul 26 08:45:32 host dhcpcd[3758]: eth0: dhcpcd 3.2.3 starting
Jul 26 08:45:32 host dhcpcd[3758]: eth0: exiting

I hope someone can make sense of this.

WilliamS

The most helpful thing you could post is the lspci & lsmod output from the desktop PC, it really sounds like a hardware driver issue but without that output we can't tell.

If you have a flash drive or floppy you could pipe the output to a file and copy it that way you wouldn't have to type it.

It definitely seems like the Network card is not being detected at all.

lspci would be a huge help for us to assist you.

Here is lspci and lsmod:
# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 Host Bridge Alternate
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (int gfx)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 4)
00:11.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 40)
00:12.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:12.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 41)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 IDE Controller (rev 40)
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) (rev 40)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 LPC host controller (rev 40)
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge (rev 40)
00:14.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI2 Controller
00:15.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Device 43a0
00:15.1 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Device 43a1
00:16.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller
00:16.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] HyperTransport Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Miscellaneous Control
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Link Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Device 9715
01:05.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc Device 970f
02:00.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation Device 0194 (rev 03)
03:0e.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
04:00.0 IDE interface: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB368 IDE controller
bash-3.1# lsmod
Module Size Used by
snd_seq_dummy 2464 0
snd_seq_oss 29792 0
snd_seq_midi_event 5980 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 47984 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 6088 3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 37728 0
snd_mixer_oss 14300 1 snd_pcm_oss
ipv6 243508 30
lp 9316 0
ppdev 7200 0
parport_pc 24036 0
parport 30700 3 lp,ppdev,parport_pc
fuse 54008 1
snd_hda_codec_atihdmi 3132 1
fglrx 2291040 51
snd_hda_codec_realtek 188544 0
snd_hda_intel 23624 0
cdc_acm 14752 0
snd_hda_codec 53788 3 snd_hda_codec_atihdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel
agpgart 29256 1 fglrx
i2c_piix4 8908 0
snd_hwdep 6816 1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm 68128 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_timer 19108 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
evdev 9152 6
rtc_cmos 10124 0
sg 24912 0
thermal 15096 0
shpchp 31888 0
rtc_core 15992 1 rtc_cmos
usblp 11548 0
rtc_lib 2332 1 rtc_core
wmi 6280 0
processor 38600 1 thermal
button 5708 0
snd 50820 11 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd _hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_timer
thermal_sys 10756 2 thermal,processor
hwmon 2104 1 thermal_sys
soundcore 5824 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 7972 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
bash-3.1#

We don't see any ethernet controller in lspci's output thus the network card is not detected at all.

If it were it would show in output of "ifconfig -a" as "eth<number>". I guess that this is not the case.

EDIT I wrongly wrote "lspci -a" at first, thanks to mRgOBLIN for noticing - I only hope I am not affected by senile dementia already

When I plug in the cable the light comes on..... (?)

Did you mean

Okay, first off you do have a problem here, but it's going to take some extra steps.

Your network card isn't even detected by lspci which is NOT promising, but it does shed some light into the matter. Now we need to dig more into the schematics of the PC you have the problems with. So lets start from scratch here. The following questions are going to be a bit direct but unless they are answered we won't get anywhere.

1. Did your PC ever come with another OS like Windows, and if so, did you ever have any problems with the Network Card on it?

2. Go into your BIOS/CMOS and check and see if the Ethernet Adapter/Port is enabled. If it's disabled, enable it. Never hurts to check this out.

3. What is the model and make of your PC and how old is it?

Once we have this information we can find out what the problem is and look into resolving it.

1 members found this post helpful.

1 - No

2- There is no such thing as Ethernet Adapter/Port in BIOS.
there is, however something called "onboard LAN function" which was disabled.
So I enabled it, rebooted, and saw on gkrellm that eth0 is up!


Much thanks to ReaperX7, and all who helped in the process.

great news!