Ethernet card wont activate

[RudeCat7]

I am tinkering with my spare box, and I was going to hook it up to my cable modem to get online, but for some reason it wont activate.

It is a 3com590. It is detected but it wont activate in Suse or Redhat 8.0 and 7.3.

I don't remember it being this hard before. My main box uses a D-link card and the card worked perfectly by just using the simple "configure network card" in Yast2.

As far as I remember, DCHP took care of everything when hooking up to my cable modem.

Do I need to configure the:
1) computer name and 2) workgroup settings
similar to the windows tcp/ip?

Can a Suse install "migrate" the tcp/ip settings from the windows partition? This would explain why it was easier for my dual boot box to connect.

[voidmain]

That card *should* work:

http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/?pagename=details&hid=4255

I have used many 3Com cards in various versions of RedHat (3c503, 3c507, 3c509, 3c905, 3c905B, 3c905C, 3c920). I believe I have also used the 3c590 but can't remember for sure.

I assume you normally get your IP address via DHCP. In RedHat 8.0 in your Network Configuration click "Edit". All you should have to do is click "Automatically Obtain IP address" with DHCP. Obviously if you do not use DHCP you will need to click "Statically set IP address" and fill in the appropriate addresses.

No there is no "Migrate" function for Windows networking, nor would I ever expect there to be such a tool. I assume you are referring to Windows specific networking (Samba). Samba is not required for basic TCP/IP networking (accessing the Internet, etc). Is your Windows side configured for DHCP (TCP/IP->Obtain an address)?

I suppose it's possible you make have to pass some parameters to the 3Com Ethernet driver but this usually is not necessary. Do you get any errors? If it doesn't pop up with any you might want to look in the system logs after attempting to "Activate" the card (there is a now a graphical utility in RedHat 8.0 to view the system logs).

I know this probably isn't the most helpful but maybe it will lead you deeper and help you find something more specific out of the ordinary.

[ October 04, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[pkd_lives]

As far as I can gather the 3C590 has only Win and  UNIX driver available. Although Red Hat say it's supported, I suspect it works with the older drivers. Try running it using one of the earlier 3com drivers.

Also 3 com adivse that you should run their DOS based driver disk to get the IRQ and Plug 'n' Play options enabled (although why this should be so in Linux I'm not sure). I think you will have to use it as a kind of boot disk. Sorry can't help you further, my network card refuses to activate under Red Hat so I reinstalled Mandrake and it works (although manufacturer refuses to support it).

[voidmain]

That card was one of those that had a configurable onboard EEPROM which was configurable through a DOS based utility written by 3com. That's what that part was for. You could do things like turn off PnP or set other parameters like which connection type to default to, IRQ, memory address, etc.

The Vortex driver (3c59x) included with Linux should work. If you have your kernel source installed you should find the "vortex.txt" file under /usr/src/linux*/Documentation/networking directory. It will describe some module parameters that you can pass (there should be options for passing the module parameters in your graphical Network Setup). Vortex.txt:

Code: [Select]

Now, you may want to get the DOS utility so you can see how the EEPROM is configured. Of course when you can pick up a 10/100 D-Link card for ~10 bucks you may not want to work very long trying to get that 10Mbps 3Com card working.

[ October 04, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[RudeCat7]

O.k. Thanks a lot! This tells me that that card is not really Linux friendly. Yes, I will just buy a new one Like you said. That card was just a spare.

[XxD]

Hey, I know NO Code at all.. I mean NONE... will the mandrake linux walk me through howto load it?

Ill go buy Linux for dummies... later =]  :cool:

[voidmain]

We're not talking code here. If all of your hardware is good (not cheap shit like winmodems) then you should have no trouble.

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by RudeCat7:
O.k. Thanks a lot! This tells me that that card is not really Linux friendly. Yes, I will just buy a new one Like you said. That card was just a spare.

You could try adding the parameter "options=0x8200" to set the debugging level to maximum output and set full duplex, and set 10baseT (which I assume is your cable type). If the information in the log doesn't help you get a different card.  

[RudeCat7]

Hmmmmmm....I bought a D-Link530TX+ which is exactly like the one I am using right now. It did not activate in Suse, and I installed Redhat 8.0 again, and it detects it, but does not activate it.

I even moved the card to another PCI slot. The cat5 cable I used is o.k., I tested it on my main box. Something is weird, the basic network configuration got me connected on my main box, and that is basically just DCHP.

This time the card is 100% linux compatible.

I am just unplugging my mainbox, and then plugging in my spare box to the toshiba cable modem. Is this a problem?     :confused:    

EDIT: I just noticed my MOBO has a CNR slot. I will check this out.

MOBO is MSI K7t Turbo2

[ October 05, 2002: Message edited by: RudeCat7 ]

EDIT: I was able to activate my network card by using a static IP, but still no connection!!!  :mad:  

I was wrong, that card may not be 100% compatible, because they used several different chipsets for that one, and some are not good for Linux. (D-Link DFE530tx+) The part number on the new one I bought doesn't even have the 530TX number on it.

[ October 05, 2002: Message edited by: RudeCat7 ]

[voidmain]

So you know for a fact the cable is good? It would make sense if you are using a cable on a machine that is working and then just swing the cable over to the machine with the new network card. Maybe there is some sort of BIOS conflict or other issue? You don't have onboard ethernet do you?  Are you getting a link light? Could you post the output from the "/sbin/lspci" command and the "dmesg" command?

[TheQuirk]

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but you should try turning off PnP in the BIOS.

[mobrien_12]

Cat, what do you mean by "won't activate."  Does kudzu recognize the card and install the correct kernel module?

/sbin/lsmod|grep 3c59x

If so, have you tried running "netconfig"?

[RudeCat7]

You wont FUCKINGbelieve this!!!

Everything was o.k. from the start! The only thing that kept me from connecting is that, my toshiba cable modem remembers the previous IP, so you can't just plug in another box and have it assign you a new IP.

SOLUTION: Unplug your Toshiba cable modem for a minute or so. Then plug in the new system and boot up! Everything runs smoooooooth after that!!!!!!!!

Anyhow, thanks Void Main, and everybody else. I don't think anybody could have guessed that it was something so stooooopid like this.

I got this idea from "Linux Complete", Sybex Inc.
         :mad:            :mad:            :mad:        

Now I can get back to trying out RH 8.0. What a loooong day!!!

[ October 05, 2002: Message edited by: RudeCat7 ]

[voidmain]

Actually I *should* have suggested trying that if you hadn't. It's something I would have tried without thinking about it. But my cable modem doesn't behave like that which is another reason I probably didn't think to suggest it.

I also have had my old P100 Linux box plugged directly into my modem acting as a router/firewall and have not plugged any other machine into it since the day it was hooked except for testing the initial connection testing. And that was over a year ago. All my other machines plug into Ethernet switches which point to that Linux box rather than the modem directly.

Glad to hear you got it working!