Ethernet woes with linksys router!!
 

Ok here goes:

Slackware 8 installation. Everything installs ok. Was getting packages randomly failing during install... I think my burned iso was retarded or something cause it works fine when I do a Newbie Full Prompt installation but wouldn't work on any other type of install.. but that's another story.

Now after installation, everything installs fine. I configure my internal network for my Linksys LNE100TX nic that has worked before on Slack 8, probing goes find with it using the tulip driver.
Now I am on a Linksys router and I set my box with a static IP and such so I can forward ports specifically to that box.

Ok, configure is fine. When booting up the lights indicating the connection to the router are all ok with the nic. After it configures eth0 as 192.168.1.3.. blah blah.. the lights go off like normal and then come back with the data light to indicate as if I was downloading rapidly flashing.

So I check with ifconfig eth0... everything is ok there, its detected and with proper settings. I check my resolv.conf file, DNS is ok..
I do a route add default gw 192.168.1.1 to ensure it has the proper gateway configured.
I try a ifconfig eth0 down.. then do a ifconfig eth0 up, lights go off then come back like before.. still the rapid flash on the router.. like before.. which isn't normal. Does it on any port I try also. Other connections are good, working on network.

No ping on internal network, outside network.. can't ping any machine or gateway.

I checked my /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 and rc.inet2 scripts. Everything is okay. Have all configurations correct in the startup scripts.
I did notice that my nic is on irq 11 which in most cases its on irq 9. so i did make sure i have isapnp turned off in the bios, also doing a force on the irq settings in the bios.. still no go.. does the same thing upon reboot, with all the same settings and running same options with ifconfig.

My next step is to do a direct connection or try dhcp and see if that works, possibly try compiling a new tulip driver.. also try a different nic card if it comes down to it.
The funny thing is that I have a small partition for win98 and it works fine when I boot into it. And I know the tulip driver works cause its the same cd I used to install on another machine with same nic.

Just looking for any other ideas maybe cause I am going nuts.. and plus I am lazy about just popping in another nic to test.. or whatever.
Might even install Slack 7.1 to see if it does the same thing.

Also to add, I even tested with another Linksys router and it did the same thing..

I'll be reporting back though if I find a solution or fix the retarded nic. :)

Man after all of that testing... also, hmm, did you check to make sure the "route" was still valid during the rapid flashing?

But really, the only logical thing I can think of at all, aside from the card having gone dodgy, is buggy cable? I don't know the blink codes of those linksys router in a box dealee-whoos, but usually quick constant flashing means it can't negotiate a rate, right?

Der...

Okay, I'm going back to sitting patiently for DSL for the first time in months...

Cheers,

Finegan

yep, tested cable and checked route... :D

it always seems my problems are so complicated, i exhaust myself in finding an answer.. and if i do post, that means so far i haven't found anything. i guess we'll see when i do what i already planned on doing with trying dhcp, try a direct connection and maybe switching the ethernet card itself..

guess i'll find it soon...

If you get data corruption during installation then you should try another CD or CDROM drive. Even though it seems to work, it doesn't always. Continuing to try to get a machine to work when you have no way of knowing wether the install really worked or not is frustrating.

Yeah that is what I thought at first too. Since it was acting funny during the installation. But to add since I didn't mention it before, I have tried from the second cdrom and from a different cd, in fact two other ones.

Yeah, its getting frustrating though. I have the day off finally so I have time to see what I come up with. :D

Have you changed the port the linux box is pluged into on the router. I had a similar problem with my router, with the lights flashing rapidly. I come to find out the port went bad and would only work at 10mb instead of 100. I had to force the media type down to 10BaseTX-FD using mii-tool. The cause was from my laptop, I would get up from my chair with the thing in my lap and zap, static shock all the way back down a 50ft cable to the router. Have had 2 ports on the router and one port on one of my hubs go bad because of this. Now I'm real carefull when using the laptop.

yep, tried different port and different router....
if i boot into win98 on same machine with same nic.. it works fine.

i am about to setup dhcp from router and see if it does the same thing. then for the heck of it i might install slack 7.1 just for the hell of it.. if it works with that which it might.. i will just keep it and just upgrade whatever i need. if it don't work, gonna pop in a new nic to test.

That's the problem, booting into Win 98. Your suffering from demonic MS NIC possession. The only surefire cure if you can't find a local priest is to take the thing out and smash it with a hammer.

Luck,

Finegan

I was thinking of the same thing.. stupid retarded nic.... :D if it does come down to a new nic working though, it might just get smashed for fun.

"I did notice that my nic is on irq 11 which in most cases its on irq 9."

This part bothers me. So lets review:

1) You turn the computer on, and the BIOS (unless you have a retarted BIOS) shows what interrupts that it is assigning to all the PCI devices. Lets call this interrupt "X".

2) You boot into the Evil Empire's OS and it either leaves it at "X" or changes it (using Plug-n-Play) to something else, say "Y".

3) You boot into Linux and it needs to configure the device at "X" because it dosn't know how to move PCI devices around. If it is not at "X", that's your problem.

4) If in Case #2 above, Window's feels it needs to move the device's interrupt, (probably because of of some conflict), then this is your problem (Linux didn't move it, therefore there still is a conflict). Solution: Move your PCI cards around in the slots so that the BIOS will try a different interrupt, hopefully one that will work. In this case Window's will think it is a new device (stupid) and want to re-install the device drivers, and the interrupt conflict may move to a couple of other devices (Video, USB, Sound, etc) In which case keep moving things around until they work, or try removing PCI cards to see if you can find the one that doesn't share interrupts correctly.

PS: Of course I could be completely off on the wrong track here. I do have Linksys LNX100TX working fine with Slack-8: 2.2.19 kernel, and had no trouble making it run, just "modprobe tulip" and everything worked.

Hope this helps

done did it. i forced it onto irq 9, still same problem. funny thing was is that it use to work with no problems. i was just reinstalling cause i wanted a nice clean reinstall, moving the windows partition over and smaller.

i have since reinstalled a new nic, but haven't reloaded or turned on the machine, no time yet to do so.

thanks for the reply though. :D i'll be posting once i get it going and how i did it.

if all else fails, you might even want to consider trying another distro to install. i'm a slackware junkie myself, but a few months ago i couldn't get my digital camera to work for the life of me, so i tried it on a redhat box i had lying around and the same module worked perfectly. i still haven't figured out why it won't work on the slack box i tried, but at least it works.

sometimes trying another distro is a good troubleshooting step, especially since you just did a fresh install, you won't be losing anything.

but that is a really weird problem... i have slack8 running my firewall with two of those linksys nics and it works perfectly.

did recompiling the tulip module work?