nic help

[csumb brad]

hey guys. when i plug my linux box into my cable modem, the light on the modem doesn't come on saying that they are connected. the ethernet port works in win2k fine. it is on the motherboard of a 3 year old compaq (5600i i think). any help on what i can try would be greatly appreciated. thanks.

[cowanrl]

Are you sure if Linux even recognized the NIC? From a command line in Linux enter:

/sbin/ifconfig -a

You should see an output something like this:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50 :DA:90 :D6:BA
inet addr:192.1.1.167 Bcast:192.1.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
IPX/Ethernet II addr:93709C38:0050DA90D6BA
IPX/Ethernet 802.2 addr:AAAA0001:0050DA90D6BA
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:685769 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:109588 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:104500831 (99.6 Mb) TX bytes:44870288 (42.7 Mb)
Interrupt:10 Base address:0xdc00

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:150 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:150 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:10180 (9.9 Kb) TX bytes:10180 (9.9 Kb)

If you don't see the output for eth0, then either the NIC wasn't detected or it's not working properly.

If you do see eth0 and it says it is UP, then try to run as root:

/sbin/mii-tool -vv (that's v v, not w)

The output from it should look something like this:

eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-FD, link ok
registers for MII PHY 24:
3000 786d 0000 0000 01e1 45e1 0007 2801
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
8000 0afb f5ff 0000 0000 0005 2001 0000
0000 2042 0044 1c11 0012 1000 0000 0000
product info: vendor 00:00:00, model 0 rev 0
basic mode: autonegotiation enabled
basic status: autonegotiation complete, link ok
capabilities: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
advertising: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
link partner: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD flow-control

If it doesn't say link ok, then you have a hardware problem of some kind.

If you haven't solved this already, try those and post the results.

[csumb brad]

ifconfig -a worked fine, but when i did mii-tool -vv it said ni MII tranceicer present. i am using red hat 7.2 if that matters. thanks for your help.