banjo Posted December 11, 2009 Report Share Posted December 11, 2009 I am stumped. I have a Mandy 2008.1 which was running fine on a MSI Mother board, Intel dual core etc. On Monday, the mother board fried itself so we were dead. It literally put out a puff of smoke and died. That board is not available any more, so we got a Foxconn G41M series MOBO and swapped it for the MSI. Now the computer boots OK. However, when I try to connect to the net, the system cannot connect. We have a working RJ45 plugged into the socket from our working switch to our DSL modem, and there are two lights lit up on the back of the MOBO, which means it is seeing a carrier on the wire. But the system sees no eth0 device. It is as if the LAN hardware does not exist. When I do an ifconfig I get only the lo device. I did an "ifup eth0" and got the message "Device eth0 does not seem to be present." I opend the Mandrake Control Center and took the following path: Network and Internet Set up a new network Ethernet No device can be found for this connection I opened the Hardware Manager and found that all looks well except for two unknown devices in Bridges and System Controllers 2e31 and 2e30, and nothing about eth0. The Foxconn document has two entries for the LAN hardware, Lan chip Realtek 10/100 G41M-V Lan chip Realtek 10/100/100Mbps (G41M-S/G41M) I suspect that the hardware is not being recognized because we slipped it under the existing system and there is a driver issue. But I can find no help anywhere about where to begin to correct that. I am so lost in this I don't know what to do. I was really really happy with my system the way it was, and I do not want to start over again. It took me a month to get it set up and working. Can anybody tell me how to get this LAN hardware recognized, a driver loaded, or whatever is needed. Thanks so much Banjo (Still a novice after all these years) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Batson Posted December 11, 2009 Report Share Posted December 11, 2009 You might try installing this driver... http://www.realtek.com.tw/DOWNLOADS/DOWNLOADSVIEW.ASPX?LANGID=1&PNID=13&PFID=5&LEVEL=5&CONN=4&DOWNTYPEID=3&GETDOWN=FALSE#2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniewicz Posted December 11, 2009 Report Share Posted December 11, 2009 Clear the CMOS on the new motherboard? You can do this by removing the battery for a few minutes and then placing it back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banjo Posted December 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2009 You might try installing this driver... http://www.realtek.com.tw/DOWNLOADS/DOWNLOADSVIEW.ASPX?LANGID=1&PNID=13&PFID=5&LEVEL=5&CONN=4&DOWNTYPEID=3&GETDOWN=FALSE#2 Thanks for the link. I'm not sure how to install a driver, and it is too late to learn how tonight. Any tips on how to do this would be a great help. Thanks, Banjo (_)=='=~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banjo Posted December 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2009 Clear the CMOS on the new motherboard? You can do this by removing the battery for a few minutes and then placing it back. It is a brand new MOBO, so I am not sure why clearing the BIOS would have any beneficial effect. What exactly will that do for me? Thanks, Banjo (_)=='=~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniewicz Posted December 11, 2009 Report Share Posted December 11, 2009 Clearing the CMOS puts everything at its default value. It is more of a let's make sure thing. It will not give you any additional problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSurfer60 Posted December 11, 2009 Report Share Posted December 11, 2009 I would check that the lan ports are activated in the BIOS before pulling the battery. Even though the lights are on it doesn't mean the ports are active by default. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tux99 Posted December 11, 2009 Report Share Posted December 11, 2009 (edited) It could well be that the on-board ethernet chip is defective, it should at least show up in the output of 'lspci' even if it's unrecognized by the drivers. If it doesn't show up in 'lspci' then it's either defective or there is some kind of conflict. Do you have any additional PCI/PCIe cards in the motherboard? also try booting up with the network cable disconnected and see if the NIC gets detected then. Edited December 11, 2009 by tux99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Batson Posted December 11, 2009 Report Share Posted December 11, 2009 Hopefully you don't need to manually download and install the driver from Realtek, although it is quite new 11/27/2009. I looked, and it is a tar.gz2 file named: r8168-8.015.00.tar.bz2 Here is a how to for installing the driver in Linux: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/R8168 Here is someone on the French Mandriva forum installing the driver... http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php%3Ft%3D120322&ei=gjQiS-uQDcf5nAeixaXwCQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAsQ7gEwAQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhow%2Bto%2Binstall%2Br8168-8.015.00.tar.bz2%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dopera%26rls%3Den%26hs%3DtLP See this... http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=538448 And this... http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/linux-networking/125489-solved-realtek-rtl8111c-controller-compatibility-3.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted December 11, 2009 Report Share Posted December 11, 2009 The BIOS or motherboard is not the problem unless of course the card is disabled in the BIOS - which I doubt (but check it anyway). If you do a: ifconfig -a and see no ethx devices (where x is a number, eth0, eth1, and so on), then there is no module loaded for your card, and is why you can't get access to the network/internet. Try the newer module that was mentioned before - compile it into the kernel if required and see if you get internet after this. I have an altansic card in my machine at home (onboard) and I can't get it with any distro that doesn't have a new kernel (so nothing in CentOS). Sometimes this happens, but in six months or so with a new distro release, you're card will be working fine without manual compilation (if you're lucky!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banjo Posted December 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2009 I am not at my Linux computer, so I can't try any of these ideas right now. Thanks for the info. I will look into it when I get home. So far, the only device that is plugged into the PCIe is an NVidia graphics card, the model of which I do not have at hand. I did not set up the CMOS myself (my son did that) so I do not know if there was an option to disable the NIC or not. I do not remember whether or not I installed the kernel source, and it is too late now because I have no internet to install the source so that I can compile the driver so that I can get to the internet so that I can install the kernel source etc. :o Compiling a kernel is a whole learning curve that I have not been through yet, so that could take a while, especially if I did not install the source code. If I have to, I will just plug in another NIC or USB wireless dongle and connect that way. Spending another month to figure out how to get the onboard NIC to work might not be worth the trouble. Thanks, Banjo (_)=='=~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banjo Posted December 12, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2009 A quick update. I checked the CMOS and saw that the onboard LAN is definitely enabled. As the computer booted, I watched the verbose messages go by and saw a red [FAILED] for accessing the eth0 device saying that it doesn't exist. It went by too fast for me to get the exact wording, and I cannot find the error in any of the logs in /var/log. Does that mean that the hardware has failed? If I have to RMA this MOBO then I am stuck with the same problem that I was trying to solve by getting the new board - the computer will be down for weeks. I visited some of the suggested forums where they got their internet working by booting and rebooting with the RJ45 connected or not. I don't think that has anything to do with this problem because those people at least had intermittent connectivity. My system just says that the device doesn't exist. I tried it all anyway with no effect. I cannot see myself learning how to compile a kernel just to see if a driver might fix this. Since when is the OS a slave to a driver? I thought that drivers were invented so you could swap out hardware without having to change the OS. When did that change? Sorry if it sounds like just a complaint, but I don't know what to do next. The sound has stopped working as well, but I assume that is because the onboard sound system is different and needs new drivers. I think I will either go back to Newegg and order a PCI NIC or maybe just go to the Apple store and order a Mac. This sucks. Any ideas that don't involve just giving up would be appreciated. Banjo (_)=='=~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniewicz Posted December 12, 2009 Report Share Posted December 12, 2009 go back to Newegg and order a PCI NIC This is probably a good idea. Those cards are cheap. I think I would still try to clear the CMOS. Nothing to lose..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tux99 Posted December 12, 2009 Report Share Posted December 12, 2009 (edited) I think I will either go back to Newegg and order a PCI NIC or maybe just go to the Apple store and order a Mac. This sucks. You didn't post the output of lspci yet, but in any case buying a PCI NIC is probably the quickest and cheapest solution (I'd buy it from some local PC store, it's quicker and they are so cheap anyway that you won't save much by buying from newegg). Edited December 12, 2009 by tux99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banjo Posted December 13, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2009 I can't find anyplace around here to buy a cheap NIC off the shelf. It is all wireless stuff, and I want this computer to hook into my router with a wire (to trouble shoot the wireless stuff LOL). I will try to get to the lspci tomorrow. I was wicked busy today... two flat tires on my wife's car (two flats at the same time!), shopping and all kinds of stuff. I am hoping for some quiet time tomorrow to look into this. Banjo (_)=='=~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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