For awhile, I thought I was doing something wrong, but then I stumbled upon this web site and found this to be a much overused thread.
Problem: FA311 NIC _appears_ to lock up during initialization. The reason I say appears is, after much coaxing I did manage to get the system to work with the FA311. I have to boot using interactive mode and not start the network service. I can then open a terminal and start the network service. The terminal will promply freeze when starting eth0. This is the curious thing. The computer I'm working with is a client. I have another that is running dhcpd, so I can look at the requests. Even though the network 'freezes' during initialization, it is still given an ip address from my dhcp server! On top of that, I can surf.
Hardware/software:
FA311 NIC (duh!)
Redhat 6.1
Kernel 2.2.12-20
Reason the problem is a problem:
The computer that I'm working with is intended to replace the computer that is the server. eth1 never even tries to initialize, because of the supposed failure of eth0 to initialize. That won't make for a good router. I can actually coax eth1 to do the same thing if I activate it from the network control-panel. (eth1 is working, but now the control-panel is frozen) Again, this wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't for the fact I want this to be a continuous running server.
What have I done?
Well, There are some good instructions on Netgear's website, that I stumbled through, but I had tried most of it already.
I downloaded the new drivers.
copied them to my hard drive
install -m 644 fa311.0 /lib/modules/2.2.12-20/net/
configured NICs per my taste in linuxconf
net device=eth(n)
Kernel = fa311
sh /etc/rc.d/init.d/network stop
(it locks and the network shouldn't even be up!)
Reboot and boot using interactive mode
sh /etc/rc.d/init.d/network stop
(works this time)
insmod fa311.o -f
exists. GRRR! I didn't put that there.
rmmod fa311
insmod fa311.o -f
(works, continueing to follow netgears instructions)
sh /etc/rc.d/init.d/network start
(dang thing freezes again, but wala! I can surf!)
That's the end of netgear's instructions. After reading this board I turned off plug and play bios and had a small seizure as I had a brief memory of dealing with PCI DSL modems in Windows NT... Didn't change one darn thing, although that was nice to know. I also manually edited modules.conf and forced it to use the fa311 module rather than unknown which it was defaulting to, but that didn't help either. Grrr...
Other alternatives:
upgrade the kernel. I wouldn't mind doing this. I need to learn how to do it anyway. Recommend a 2.4.x kernel and a site to download w/ instructions? I'm running redhat 6.1 and redhat doesn't seem to recommend anything above 2.2.17.x for my distribution
...switch the NICs with my server (go figure they were free)
THAT FEELS LIKE A COP OUT!!!
...buy redhat 7.1
see above and add cheap.
Seriously...Is there any hope for this card or should it burn in the lowest level of hades? Comments appretiated. Slap in face and more coffee needed. Useful information more so...
