"Network Cable Unplugged" error message in XP after booting Knoppix

NanakiXIII · 05-18-2008, 06:50 PM

Today I downloaded the live CD for Knoppix 5.1.1 to resize a partition with QtParted. That all worked well, but when I booted back into XP, my network connection was gone, XP telling me that the network cable was unplugged. I tried using a different cable, on a different router port, to no avail, and I had a perfectly fine connection on another computer, so I knew it had something to do with my laptop specifically. I'm guessing that booting into Knoppix somehow screwed up my ethernet card or another vital piece of hardware.

Well, in the mean time, the problem is solved. I booted back into Knoppix, twice, to see if I had any connection there. Under Knoppix, I couldn't connect to anything either. But when I booted into XP again, my connection was back.

The thing is, I want to dual boot my current XP installation with a Linux distribution, but I don't want to constantly run into problems like this when I do. I would like to know, therefore, if anyone could tell me what happened here, because I haven't a clue, and what I can do to prevent it. I've been googling this problem and though I haven't been able to find anything that specifically addresses my issue, I understand that these types of problems, with dual booting and such, are more common when working with a laptop. If anyone could tell me more about that as well, I'd be thankful.

If anyone could answer some of my questions or offer me some general insight, I'd appreciate it.

Peacedog · 05-18-2008, 08:35 PM

Hi NanakiXIII, Welcome to lq. I've seen this problem both ways actually, e.g. your situation where the card doesn't work from Windows, and also the other way where Windows shuts down th card and Linux can't use it.

From my experience when it happens the way you're having trouble, a driver update from the windows side usually solves it. Alternatively, when it's the other way around it's usually solved with the WOL, wake on lan features, either from Windows or from BIOS.

Hope that helps a little.
Good luck. ;-)

NanakiXIII · 05-19-2008, 01:19 PM

Thanks, Peacedog.

I've tried to do as you suggested, upgrade my drivers, but in doing so I've effectively caused my NIC to stop functioning altogether. For some reason I can't get it to accept the newer drivers. I'm in the process of trying to fix this, but if I don't manage to get the new drivers to work, I will have to revert back to the old drivers, so if anyone knows of another way to fix this, I'd be interested.

Also, could anyone tell me whether I can expect this problem to occur with every Linux distribution?

Peacedog · 05-19-2008, 01:24 PM

What problems are you having with the new drivers? Where did you get them?
Good luck. ;-)

NanakiXIII · 05-19-2008, 02:11 PM

I got them from Realtek. I don't really know why they won't work, but I do know that when I let Windows look for drivers for the NIC, it allows me to browse for the appropriate files, and the filenames it asks for are not the same as the filenames of the driver files Realtek provided. For example, Windows wants a file called "Rtenic.sys", while what I've got is "Rtnic.sys". When I simply run the setup that came with the drivers, it all apparently installs fine, but it has no effect on my NIC, it doesn't accept the drivers, or doesn't recognize that the drivers are intended for it, or Windows doesn't recognize that.

I am looking for the solution to this problem already, however, and I understand that it might be undesirable to discuss Windows problems on a Linux help forum, so if this discussion is dismissed until I figure things out, I'll understand.

Peacedog · 05-19-2008, 05:17 PM

It's kind of a Linux problem as well, as ultimately we're trying to figure out what is going on with the nic from one OS to the other. If anything, it'll likely get moved to /general. I doubt it will get "Nixed". ;-)

That said, check the dates on the files to make sure they are in fact newer. Check to be sure you have the correct drivers. If this is an onboard card, try the mother board manufacturer's website.
Good luck. ;-)

Edit: I just reread the first post, if this is a Laptop, try the manufacturer's website.
Good luck. ;-)

NanakiXIII · 05-20-2008, 06:16 AM

Well, I solved my driver issue. I changed the filenames to the ones Windows wanted and it actually worked. Somehow that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Well, for now I guess I'll be happy my connection is back and I managed to install the new drivers, and I'll cross my fingers that this ugly fix will hold.

Back to the original issue, well, I've updated my drivers, but I'm unsure how now to proceed towards getting things to work. First of all, I'm not really sure how to reproduce what happened. I booted into Knoppix, ran some software, booted back into Windows and my connection was gone. I booted back into Knoppix, typed some commands into the Terminal that were related to a problem that was probably not even remotely related to my issue, booted back into Windows and found that it had no effect. After a lot of googling, the solution I found to something that seemed closest to what I have here was to boot into Knoppix, twice, then boot back into Windows. Well, I did, and it seemed to work, as my connection was back, but I'm fairly sure that "booting into Knoppix twice" isn't really the best description of this cure, nor can I verify that it works every time because I've not tried this again, in fear of losing functionality more permanently.

What I'd like to know before I plunge back into this issue is whether there is any information on what is actually happening and what I can actually do to see if it works now and, if it doesn't, how I can fix it, reliably.

Peacedog · 05-20-2008, 07:36 AM

Have you checked your bios wake on lan settings? IMO the only reliable way to test this is to boot to Linux and then back and see if this reoccurs. As far as a fix, we'll have to see if there is actually a problem first.
Good luck. ;-)

NanakiXIII · 05-20-2008, 11:26 AM

I didn't look into the WOL settings because I thought you meant that only applied when the problem worked the other way around. I've checked my BIOS and I could only find a LAN Remote Boot setting, I'm assuming that's the same thing as Wake on LAN. It was set to enabled and I left it so.

I booted into Knoppix again, I didn't have any connection under Knoppix, but when booting back into XP, my connection wasn't destroyed, so that's one step in the right direction.

I was hoping that fixing this issue would also fix the problem of not having any connection under Knoppix (and possibly Linux in general?), but I suppose it's possible Knoppix just doesn't come with the right drivers.

So I guess updating my drivers did the trick. Thanks for that tip.

Peacedog · 05-20-2008, 12:29 PM

The nic is working in XP now, but not in Knoppix? If that's the case, boot back into knoppix open a root terminal and post the output from the following please.

Code:

# lspci -v
# lsmod

Good luck. ;-)

NanakiXIII · 05-20-2008, 02:10 PM

It took me a while to figure out how to get this back into Windows, but I managed. I'm afraid that a file that under Knoppix looked great, under Windows looks a little shabby, with some carriage returns that should not be there and such, but I think it's readable enough.

I hope this is what you wanted. I'm assuming this doesn't display any sensitive information. I don't see any, but that doesn't really mean anything.

I'm guessing that "Capabilities: <access denied>" is a bad thing?

Code:

knoppix@Knoppix:~$ lspci -v
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile Memory Cont
roller Hub (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Capabilities: <access denied>

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PCI Express
Root Port (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, se
c-latency=0
        I/O behind bridge: 00002000-00002fff
        Memory behind bridge: cfe00000-cfefffff
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000d00000
00-00000000dfffffff
        Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Fa
mily) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ
16
        I/O ports at 1800 [size=32]

00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Fa
mily) USB UHCI #5 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ
21
        I/O ports at 1820 [size=32]

00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Fa
mily) USB2 EHCI #2 (rev 03) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ
18
        Memory at f0404800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [si
ze=1K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Fami
ly) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22
        Memory at f0400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [si
ze=16K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family
) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]
)
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=03, se
c-latency=0
        I/O behind bridge: 0000f000-0000ffff
        Memory behind bridge: fb000000-fcffffff
        Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family
) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]
)
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=04, subordinate=04, se
c-latency=0
        Memory behind bridge: f0200000-f02fffff
        Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family
) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]
)
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=05, subordinate=05, se
c-latency=0
        I/O behind bridge: 00003000-00003fff
        Memory behind bridge: f0300000-f03fffff
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000880000
00-00000000880fffff
        Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Fa
mily) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ
20
        I/O ports at 1840 [size=32]

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Fa
mily) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ
19
        I/O ports at 1860 [size=32]

00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Fa
mily) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ
18
        I/O ports at 1880 [size=32]

00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Fa
mily) USB2 EHCI #1 (rev 03) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ
20
        Memory at f0404c00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [si
ze=1K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Br
idge (rev f3) (prog-if 01 [Subtractive decode])
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=06, subordinate=06, se
c-latency=0
        Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile LPC Interfac
e Controller (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
        Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Mobile IDE Contr
oller (rev 03) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ
19
        I/O ports at <unassigned>
        I/O ports at <unassigned>
        I/O ports at <unassigned>
        I/O ports at <unassigned>
        I/O ports at 18a0 [size=16]

00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Mobile SATA AH
CI Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0])
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency
0, IRQ 19
        I/O ports at 18d8 [size=8]
        I/O ports at 18cc [size=4]
        I/O ports at 18d0 [size=8]
        I/O ports at 18c8 [size=4]
        I/O ports at 18e0 [size=32]
        Memory at f0404000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [si
ze=2K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMB
us Controller (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 19
        Memory at 88100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [si
ze=256]
        I/O ports at 1c00 [size=32]

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc U
nknown device 7210 (rev ce) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknown
device 1107
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 5
        Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=2
56M]
        I/O ports at 2000 [size=256]
        Memory at cfef0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [si
ze=64K]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at cfe00000 [disabled] [s
ize=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

04:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireles
s 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Unknown device 1001
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 7
        Memory at f0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [si
ze=4K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknowndevice 1107
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
        I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
        Memory at f0300000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at 88000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

knoppix@Knoppix:~$ lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
ipv6                  279616  12
sworks_agp             13472  0
nvidia_agp             12316  0
efficeon_agp           12192  0
amd64_agp              16772  0
ali_agp                11136  0
dm_mod                 60440  0
agpgart                36044  5 sworks_agp,nvidia_agp,efficeon_agp,amd64_agp,ali_agp
af_packet              29960  0
snd_hda_intel          23960  1
snd_hda_codec         161152  1 snd_hda_intel
snd_pcm_oss            45728  0
snd_mixer_oss          20224  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                80004  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              26500  1 snd_pcm
snd                    55396  8 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
serio_raw              11012  0
i2c_i801               12044  0
soundcore              12512  1 snd
r8169                  34184  0
snd_page_alloc         13960  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
tsdev                  11840  0
joydev                 13760  0
evdev                  14208  1
pcmcia                 41132  0
firmware_class         14208  1 pcmcia
yenta_socket           30220  0
rsrc_nonstatic         17408  1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core            43800  3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
cpufreq_ondemand       12300  1
speedstep_centrino     13732  2
speedstep_lib           8836  0
freq_table              9088  2 cpufreq_ondemand,speedstep_centrino
video                  19460  0
thermal                17928  0
sbs                    18856  0
processor              36200  2 speedstep_centrino,thermal
i2c_ec                  9216  1 sbs
i2c_core               25984  2 i2c_i801,i2c_ec
fan                     8836  0
container               8576  0
button                 10768  0
battery                14084  0
ac                      9348  0
aufs                   88244  1
cloop                  18208  1
sbp2                   28292  0
ohci1394               38960  0
ieee1394              300760  2 sbp2,ohci1394
usb_storage            73408  0
usbhid                 56928  0
ff_memless              9992  1 usbhid
libusual               20624  1 usb_storage
ohci_hcd               24580  0
uhci_hcd               27788  0
ehci_hcd               35848  0
usbcore               135812  7 usb_storage,usbhid,libusual,ohci_hcd,uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd

Peacedog · 05-20-2008, 08:41 PM

Here is the bit we're looking for.

Code:

05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Siemens Computer GmbH Unknowndevice 1107
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
        I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
        Memory at f0300000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at 88000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

According to this the module is loaded.

Code:

r8169                  34184  0

Concerning sensitive information, the commands I asked for are simply to list devices on the pci bus verbosely, lspci -v, and to list loaded modules, lsmod.

That said, from the windows side try disabling the power saving feature on the card. I recall reading some where that the power saving option from windows puts the card "to sleep", and the driver at the time simply didn't know how to "wake it up". There is likely a newer version of the driver available in a more current kernel or possibly from the manufacturer's website.

For now though try disabling the powersave feature and see if that does the trick. My apologies for not explaining the commands earlier, it wasn't my intention to lead you blindly into posting.
Good luck. ;-)

NanakiXIII · 05-21-2008, 02:25 AM

I did as you suggested and disallowed the computer to turn the NIC off to save power. It didn't have any effect. While looking through the properties of the NIC, I also noticed a setting called Wake-On-Lan After Shutdown, which was disabled. I don't know fully what it does, but I tried enabling that, thinking it may have something to do with it, but that didn't work either.

Peacedog · 05-21-2008, 07:23 AM

When you boot into Knoppix are you just expecting a connection to be present or are you trying to configure one through the network config tool?
Good luck. ;-)

NanakiXIII · 05-21-2008, 08:51 AM

I was expecting a connection to simply be present. I'm guessing that was wrong of me. I suppose I should have expected that the effort of learning to work with Linux would extend to connecting to things. In my defense, however, I am fairly sure that last time I used Knoppix (which was quite some time ago, with a much older version of Knoppix on a much older system), I did have a connection right from the get-go.

But before I delve into finding out how to setup a connection, you are implying that I was mistaken to expect a working connection, right?