Mandrake 10.1 problems with nForce networking card

[Guest sunfire]

Hi there.

 

I am using Mandrake 10.1 Limited Edition and I am having problems with the nForce network

card.

 

I have installed the latest Nvidia drivers and lsmod shows that the nvnet module is loaded.

When I try and configure a new network interface using MCC as per drivers release notes

(New connection -> Lan Connection -> manually load a driver -> select "nvnet" -> select

"Autoprobe"). however no new network interface is displayedd, and no error

messages displayed (including none iin /var/log/messages)

 

Now by default Mandrake picked up my network card as eth0 and I've trying configuring

IP address manually by ifconfig and MCC, and tried setting it to use DHCP via MCC.

 

I can ping my IP address but when i try pinging my defauilt gateway I get "Destination

unreachable"

 

I every physically is ok at the same box has no problems with connections from Windows XP.

 

Does anyone have any ideas here what could be going wrong here or have a pointers to

any HOWTOs (apart from the Nvidia driver Release notes) on how to configure this

card?

Rgds.,

Nick

[DragonMage]

What kind of Motherboard is it? For Mandrake 10.1, you don't need to download and install the NForce driver. The Opensource forcedeth network module works usually.

 

Now it may be that the motherboard uses a gigabit ethernet chip. For regular Fast ethernet, forcedeth works fine, both in my old Epox 8RDA+ (NF2) and my current Gigabyte K8NS (NF3)

[Guest sunfire]

It is Nvidia/Realtek motherboard with nForce3 250 AGP and an AMD64 3500 processor. It has

two onboard network cards, one the nForce, the other a Realtek RTL8169 family gigabit NIC,

and an onboard Realtek AC97 sound card. So it appears to be a Gigabit motherboard.

The PC manufacturer is Evesham if thats any help.

 

Sorry I can't be any more specific than that without opening up the system unit. The PC

was supplied by my employer with very little in the way of technical documentation or indeed

what the box contains, or input from myself.

 

Rgds.,

Nick.

[ianw1974]

Hi Nick, welcome to the board!

 

You say you have two onboard nics? Don't want to sound like I'm suggesting something silly, but you've definitely got the patch into the right nic? I'm assuming you've determined correctly which one is the NForce, and which one is the Realtek from the onboard ports.

 

I too, have a Gigabyte board, only it has one nic port. The Realtek on mine, is the one nearest the onboard AC97 sound ports. The other port is blank - no nic port, but would assume this is where the NForce one would be if I was to have one.

 

If you want the Realtek drivers:

 

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downlo...2&Software=True

 

that's the link to them, about half-way down is v2.21 for 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels.

 

Try the cable in the other port, if you've not done already, to ascertain whether you have the right one.

 

Another thing, when you did ifconfig, did it show whether it was up? Fourth line down against eth0, showing "UP BROADCAST........"?

[guppetto]

Unload the nvnet module.

 

I had a simular problem with my nForce3 chipset, but here is what I always do to fix the problem.

 

1. Delete your current connections for eth0 and eth1 if they exist under mcc

 

2. Don't use the nvnet module, because i've never gotten it to work. Use the forcedeth module after selecting cable modem setup instead of Lan. DHCP will be setup automatically for you. When setting up the connection allow users to start the connection when you see that option appear. Take the defaults for everything else.

 

3. Here's the kicker and I'm not quite sure why just yet, but it does work. Run the Internet Connection sharing wizard and select reconfigure. When you hit next it will find your ethernet connection and install some software (I haven't figured out what software it installs just yet). Afterwards, immediately launch a browser and try to go to google; it should work.

[Guest sunfire]

HI guys,

 

Some very strange is going on here, more on that a bit.

 

Firstly to respondi to Ian's comment about me making sure I used the corect NIC. I doubled

checked by using Windows XP firstlly to make sure I am definitely able to obtain the

DHCP lease and to make sure which card is which by comparing their MAC addresses.

So I don't think that is the problem here. On the mandrake side eth0 is the nForce card

and eth1 is the Realtek card as confirmed using the ifconfig to check the MAC addresses

and MCC confirming what type of cards I have when I tried an add a new connection.

I appear to have the same problem with the Realtek interface as welll BTW

 

Also the eth0 iinterface does not show UP when I connfigure it viai DHCP using MCC but

when I bring the interface up using ifconfig (with the IP address, subnet mask from the lease

obtained by XP) it does come up.

 

Onto guppetto's suggestion. What I have done:

 

1) removed nvnet.ko from under its location under /lib/modules and rebooted

 

 

2) Ran lsmod | grep -i nvnet to make sure that the module was NOT loaded.

 

 

3) From MCC removed my connections for eth0/eth1

 

 

4) Tried creating a new connection on eth0 via MCC following the defaults as recommended

Although MCC said this was successful , iifconfig showed that no IP address was

ontained and the interface was down. The dhcpcd logs showed that it timed out waiting

for a response from a DHCP server.

 

 

5) Then Internet connection sharing in MCC claimed that eth1 was the only configured

interface. I double checked by taking a look at seeing what Remove connections

was showing, but it claimed that eth0 was the only confiigured interface.

 

Anyhow configured internet sharing on eth1 and ifconfig show the interface was

up but with a private IP address (192.168.1.1) rather than th 80.* addresses used

by my ISP.

 

 

6) Removed connections again and tried configuring a new connection on eth1,

checked remove connections and it showed that eth1 was the only configured

connection, but Internet sharing stated that eth0 with the nvnet module was

the only configured connection although lsmod showed the nvnet module was NOT

loaded.

 

 

Hmmmm so either I'm doing something wrong here or Mandrake is getting confused

between the two cards.

 

One thing is I was thinking is there any way I can configure Mandrake to only boot

up with the eth0 device and to ignore the the second card? Perhaps I may be able to

get things working if Mandrake had only one card to deal with. To be honest I don't

need two cards at this point.

 

Rgds.,

Nick.

[ianw1974]

Check the option Plug and Play OS in your BIOS. Change this so that it's disabled, or not set to OS, as this can cause hardware detection problems.

 

Something else, I read through a post I helped a week or two back. Go into MCC/Boot/Boot Loader. Tick the box for Force no APIC.

 

Reboot and see if it helps. You may want to try forcing the other option too if that doesn't work. It solved a load of problems with networking, especially if your card is recognised, but can't seem to communicate across the network, and doesn't show as being "UP".

 

Also, make sure you're configuring as LAN connections, and nothing else, as effectively, it is just a LAN connection, if you access the internet via a router (the router has done the internet connection).

[Guest sunfire]

Hi Ian,

 

You are a star!!!!!

 

I switched PnP from auto to manual in my BIOS and setup a new connection in MCC

Att his point eth0 got asigned a private IP address (i.e. 194.168..*.*) via DHCP.

Then I set "enable ACPI" in Boot-> Boottloader. I then rebooted and eth0 picked up

an Internet facing IP address from my ISP.

 

Needless to say I am now writting this this from my new PC using Mandrake. *:)

 

Thanks to you and everyone else who responded. This is much appreciated.

 

Rgds.,

Nick.

[ianw1974]

:D Excellent news! Have fun now you've got it going, and any questions, you know where we are :P