Help... RH9 hangs when...

[SkimMilk]

when trying to bring up the interface eth0

i'm a complete newbie to linux. just managed to install it on my laptop (Acer travelmate 621xv). however, when it tries to boot up, it will hang when it tries to 'bring up eth0'.

i m however, able to boot into linux if i bypass this part of the boot up. when i tried to access the network configuration to disable/enable the nic, it hangs totally(must do hard reset). the hardware browser is able to show me the nic though (intel pro/100 ve). what is wrong?

i've also tried this (i know this is for rh7...): http://www.megapath.net/support/TechSupport/setup/redhat_7_static.asp but the booting up still hangs at the eth0 part. what shld i do? m really interested in learning linux but this thing is pissing me off... :(

[DMR]

As far as the info in the link you posted; that's the correct procedure for static addressing, but it won't help if you're supposed to be obtaining your IP info via DHCP. Which type of addressing should you be using, static or dynamic?

Have a look through the suggestions in these past posts (http://justlinux.com/forum/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=526254&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending) and let us know how far you get. If you need more help after that, please let us know what steps you took and include the exact text of any errors you encounter.

[Icarus]

How long have you let it hang? Sometimes it could take up to 5 minutes for a process to time out and fail.

[SkimMilk]

i hung it for > 15 mins. the system went dead totally. had to cut the power supply on my laptop to reset.

DMR: i'm trying to get it to connect to my router via dhcp. I've also tried static ip assigning but it just doesnt work. When i try to let it activate the nic, it hangs immediately. I dont get any error msgs at all. During bootup, with eth0 onboot=yes, i get this: "Bringing up interface eth0:" and it just hangs.

how can i re-install the ethernet card?
this is the updated driver on the intel page http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/filter_results.asp?strOSs=39&strTypes=PLU%2CDRV%2CARC%2CUTL&ProductID=407&OSFullName=Linux*&submit=Go%21 but i dont know how to go abt installing it. can u give me a step by step instruction?

[DMR]

Step by step instructions are in the README (ftp://aiedownload.intel.com/df-support/2896/ENG/e100.txt) on the driver download page. If there's a reference to the old driver in /etc/modules.conf, remove it when you install the new driver.

It might not be the driver at all though. If the system locks up hard, you could have a hardware problem or conflict.

-Could the NIC be faulty?

-Have you turned Plug-N-Play OS support off in your BIOS? If your BIOS setup allows, do it- it can often clear up hardware resource conflicts.

- look through the system logs in /var/log for any error messages that might give a clue as what's causing the problem.

- The problem might be a known bug; what distro and version of Linux are you using?

- What is the exact model# of the NIC?

- Are you currently using the right driver/module for the NIC? Look in /etc/modules.conf to find out what drivers should be loading at startup.

[jhoegl]

If you run ifconfig in console what do you get?

[SkimMilk]

ifconfig gives me:

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask 255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX Packets:80 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX Packets:80 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:5350 (5.2 Kb) TX bytes:5350 (5.2 Kb)

[SkimMilk]

DMR:

the NIC couldnt be faulty cos i'm dual booting win98 with it n i'm using it to surf the net.

i'm using an acer laptop (travelmate 621XV). there's no option to turn off PnP in bios.

went thru the system log n this is wat i saw:
localhost kernel: eth0: Error -110 writing Tx descriptor to BAP

i'm using redhat 9.

model of nic: intel pro/100 VE (as stated under win98, using the drivers provided by acer) i couldnt find more info... note also that this is not a pci nic. Its a cnr...

i think i'm using the correct driver/module cos its stated as
alias eth0 e100 under /modules.conf

as for installing the driver, i've went thru the readme step by step but i dont understand this: insmod e100 <parameter>=<value>
what m i suppose to enter into parameter an value??

[DMR]

ifconfig gives me: ...

As expected; the NIC is down, so ifconfig won't report it. Try "ifconfig -a"; the -a option tells ifconfig to report all interfaces, active or not. If you don't see anything for eth0 at that point, you've almost certainly got a hardware-related issue.

[SkimMilk]

ifconfig -a tells me something abt eth0...

i can ping localhost (127.0.0.1)

lsmod says e100 is unused...

[DMR]

Originally posted by SkimMilk
ifconfig -a tells me something abt eth0... Please post the exact information reported by ifconfig -a?

Originally posted by SkimMilk
i can ping localhost (127.0.0.1) Yeah, the localhost loopback should be pingable on any machine using TCP/IP, even if you have no NIC installed. It test the functionality of the TCP/IP stack, but it doesn't test the physical layer of the network (which includes the NIC).

Originally posted by SkimMilk
lsmod says e100 is unused... That's OK, the "unused" is just saying that no other module have a dependency on the e100 module.

Can you bring the card up with the following command?:

ifup eth0

If not, post the error you get. If you get no erorrs, see if the card is then reported when you run:

ifconfig eth0


** I've been doing some research on your card and the driver(s) associated with it, and have found some confllicts caused by certain driver version/NIC firmware combinations. Let me see what more I can find and get back to you.

[SkimMilk]

ifconfig -a says:

eth0

Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:E2:64:E1:1F
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelan:0
RX bytes:901735 (880.6 Kb) TX bytes:901735 (880.6 Kb)

followed by the lo information which is similar to wat i posted before. i just executed the ifup eth0 but i suspect its hung the system again... will post again in 7mins.

how do i check what irqs are used by wat device? during bootup, i saw alot of irq 10 being shown... m suspecting its irq conflict... if so, how do i assign irq?

i'm really grateful for all your help here... without you, i think i'd have dropped linux n gone back to windoze....

[SkimMilk]

system has hung. doing a reset now... :mad:

will try the ifconfig eth0 after ths. :)

[SkimMilk]

not working.... :( :( :(

[DMR]

Grr,

I really wish BIOS manufacturers would allow disabling of PNP much more often than they do- that clears up problems like this most of the time.

You can see which devices are assigned to which IRQs with the following command:

less /proc/interrupts

Check I/O address usage with:

less /proc/ioports

Unless your BIOS allows manipulation/reservation of IRQs, there isn't much you can do to force IRQ assignments on anything but old ISA cards.

As far as the driver goes, there is apparently a difference between the Linux-supplied "eepro100" module and the Intel-supplied "e100" module. Until I can find more info, you might want to take a look at this eepro100 driver page (http://www.scyld.com/network/eepro100.html).

I've got to sign off to take care of some business (business that actually makes me $$, that is). See what else you can find out on your own; I'll get back to this thread in a couple of hours.

:)

(By the way- don't abandon Linux over a single hardware compatibility issue. Remember that the fault for these kinds of problems quite often lies with hardware manufacturers who design their products with a closed-source mentality and the belief that Windows is the only PC OS in existence. Most of the Linux drivers out there are developed by individuals who dedicate their own time trying to reverse-engineer closed-source code in order to make things work.)

[SkimMilk]

less /proc/interrupts tells me that my pcmcia devices are sharing the irq 10 together with my usb ports and firewire... its also sharing with something called intel ich3.

less /proc/ioports says 7000-703f is use by my ethernet controller.. it also says ich3... wat's ich3?

i've got a built in modem (lucent modem). however, rh is not detecting it... how can i install it? need some guidance in installing hardware here...

quite troublesome for me now cos the notebook's running rh, no network, so i cant access the net. need my desktop here to read all the posts ard.. hope to at least get some net stuff working on the notebook so that i can read n try at the same time... :(

i wont give up on linux cos i started out wanting to master it (its hard, real hard) so i wont give up. i've got another problem with the display as well.. once i press ctrl-alt-f1 to get to terminal, i wont be able to get back to my graphical window... using ctrl-alt-backspace doesnt work, killall X doesnt work. it just gives me a blank black screen. so in the end, i'll try to go back to terminal BUT it also gives me a blank screen.. cant do anything from here except to reboot. any reason y?

PS: Good luck for our business! ;)

[DMR]

Originally posted by SkimMilk
less /proc/interrupts tells me that my pcmcia devices are sharing the irq 10 together with my usb ports and firewire... its also sharing with something called intel ich3. OK, you have a massive clustering of devices at IRQ 10, which is not a good thing. Are you absolutely sure that your BIOS has no PNP options? If there's anything in there at all related to PNP let us know; it would really help if we could manipulate that right now.

Originally posted by SkimMilk
less /proc/ioports says 7000-703f is use by my ethernet controller.. it also says ich3... wat's ich3?I don't know; ich3 might be related to yuor NIC, but I'll have to check.

Originally posted by SkimMilk
i've got a built in modem (lucent modem). however, rh is not detecting it... how can i install it?Actually, I'd put that aside for the moment- trying to add another piece of hardware into the puzzle will probably only complicate things at this point.

Originally posted by SkimMilk
once i press ctrl-alt-f1 to get to terminal, i wont be able to get back to my graphical window... using ctrl-alt-backspace doesnt work, killall X doesnt work.alt-F7 will get you back to your GUI.

I'm sure I can come up with a few more ideas, but (despite some popular opinions around here) we moderators really do have lives outside of JustLinux, and some of us really even need to eat and sleep now and again, so...

:)

[SkimMilk]

i'm really grateful for your help. I know mods are also humans and everyone's got their lives. i'm not trying to force everything out of ya but you'r the only one who's helping me with my problems, thats y i'm asking so much.. :p mayb u can refer me to some good sites that explains lots of stuff for newbies... i dont even understand y we need to compile this n that, wat's rebuild, wat's rpm etc... i've been living in the windoze world too long, i'm sick of it. :o

n yup, the bios doesnt allow me to disable PnP. i can only select whether i want to enable the serial, parallel n irda ports. doing so also allows me to manually assign the irqs to them. my notebook is the acer travelmate 621XV, mayb u might know how to hack the bios? :p

i'm surprised by the number of devices at irq 10 too... most of the other irq's arent used at all... i remember last nite i was fooling ard the network configuration n when i clicked on eth0, it told me the irq was unknown. i assigned it to irq 14 n tried activating it but alas, it froze again.

did u mean that pressing alt-ctrl-f7 will get me back? it didnt work for me... hah. it just gave me a blank screen... :( but lets forget abt this, i'll just try to stick to grapical mode whenever i can. ;)

[SkimMilk]

someone told me in another forum that he solved this problem by installing pumpd instead of dhcp... any idea wat's pumpd n how do i install it?

[DMR]

Originally posted by SkimMilk
i'm not trying to force everything out of ya but you'r the only one who's helping me with my problemsTell me about it. I wish someone else would jump in with a bright idea or two; laptops aren't really my specialty and I'm running out of ideas of my own- grrr.
-----------------------------------
Some random thoughts and findings:

Unfortunately, there are combination of things which could be contributing to this:

- A likely IRQ conflict
- A possible driver/module issue
- DHCP configuration

1. On desktop machines you can often force a reassignment of IRQs by rearranging the order of the cards on the PCI bus, but in your case most of the components are built onto the motherboard so we don't have that option here. There are a couple of options that you can pass to the kernel at bootup which might help with IRQ assignment:

noapic
noacpi (or possibly "pci=noacpi")

If you need to know how to enter those options tell me which bootloader you use.

2. You are using the Intel-supplied e100 module; you should try using the eepro100 module in your kernel instead; it might make a difference. In your modules.conf file, change "alias eth0 e100" to "alias eth0 eepro100" and reboot.

3. We can't really do much about DHCP until we can at least get the NIC working.

Originally posted by SkimMilk
mayb u might know how to hack the bios? :p Yeah right. I'd be lucky if I could program my way out of a coffe cup let alone hack your BIOS :D

Originally posted by SkimMilk
did u mean that pressing alt-ctrl-f7 will get me back? it didnt work for me Actually, both alt-F7 and ctrl-alt-F7 do it for me. If you need a command prompt but don't want to change terminals just open a terminal window; you should have a terminal program somewhere in your menus.

[SkimMilk]

Originally posted by DMR
noapic
noacpi (or possibly "pci=noacpi")

If you need to know how to enter those options tell me which bootloader you use.--> i'm using grub


Originally posted by DMR
2. You are using the Intel-supplied e100 module; you should try using the eepro100 module in your kernel instead; it might make a difference. In your modules.conf file, change "alias eth0 e100" to "alias eth0 eepro100" and reboot.--> will try this later.. gonna send my granny to the hospital soon


Originally posted by DMR
Actually, both alt-F7 and ctrl-alt-F7 do it for me. If you need a command prompt but don't want to change terminals just open a terminal window; you should have a terminal program somewhere in your menus.--> that's wat i'm doing... but i log in as root to make changes and when i log out to log in my user, the screen goes sayonara! :mad:

[SkimMilk]

amazing discovery... dhcp n pump WERE not installed. i only found dhclient installed and its for my wireless device. however, my wireless also not working... haha.. i'll try installing pump from the cd (if i can make it) n come back here... :rolleyes: