NIC card/Debian troubles.

[glamgeek]

hello.
for the past 2 weeks i've been struggiling with getting my network card set up.
i started out with a netgear fa311 pci nic and slackware 7.1
i've experimented with everything, and i now have debian 2.2r2 with a rlt8139 nic installed.
i've had no luck.
but focusing on my current setup.. with the realtek card and debian 2.2..
during setup i did nothing reguarding my network card.. as far as i can remember.. so my option is to do a modconf and install the module i need for my card..
so i do modconf.. i see my module listed (rtl8139.o) and i choose it, it asks to install to kernel.. i choose yes..

it lists 3 errors.. something a long the lines of device is busy or in use.. hint may be caused by blah blah i/o irq parameters..
and installation failed.

so i checked to see if my card was installed right doing..
dmesg etho -i | grey /pci/blah blah <-( i can't remember exactly.. but it was something like that i think..)and it said..
ethernet controller: unkown device unkown vendor

so at least that tells me it knows its there.. right?

*sigh* this has happened on all of my computers. i can't get anything to work. i had slack 7.0 and a farallon card on this very box 8 months ago..
and i've had windows working with my nic cards so i know it can't be a motherboard/irq problem.

all i want is to setup a network *cries*
can anyone help?

thanks,
jeni

[Evil Jeff]

If you can get a hold of it, I would just compile a brand new kernel since you are bound to do it anyway sometime in the future. Also, if you compile with 2.4.x remember that the modules is now called 8239too instead of rtl1839.

[glamgeek]

complie a new kernel?
well u mean compile it with..the 8139too module?
would that really make it work or help the situation?


<3
jeni

[bdg1983]

If you are getting device busy or resource conflicts, then try turning off PnP OS in the bios. A lot of the times that in itself fixes the problem.

[glamgeek]

alright.
i'll try that...


<3
jeni

[glamgeek]

grr.
ok i turned pnp "off" under bios
and i tried
modconf to install the rtl81390 module.. and.. it gave the errors again
it listed it's path.. and device or resource busy..
hint: may be caused by incorrect i/o irq parameters
and insmod failed
and installation failed


argg.
is there anything else i can try??
how do i know if the incorrect i/o irq parameters, is the problem or not?


<3
jeni

[glamgeek]

one question,
if i recompile my kernel.. i need the
"too" module , right?

-jeni

[jim beam]

just a possible quick fix.... you might want to try putting the net card in a different pci slot because it shares IRQ with the agp card in the first pci slot. just a suggestion

[glamgeek]

hmm.. i only ever saw ONE pci slot..
there was just one white slot at the bottem of the board..and thats where i put my card.


<3
jeni

[DMR]

Only one slot, or only one unoccupied slot? It would be a pretty weird motherboard if it had just one PCI slot :confused:

If other cards are occupying other PCI slots, try swapping the position of one of these cards with your NIC's slot.

[Black_Xmas]

Well, I have a realtek 8019 NIC in my machine, I don't know if it's going to be the exact same proceedure, but it might be close.

Got ahold of the disk that came with the NIC and boot to dos. On the disk there's a setup program called rset8019.

Change it to jumpless mode in the setup and choose a sensible IRQ and I/O.

Once that was done. reboot to linux and looked in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules (could have been modules.conf I don't remember :( ) and there's a module for NE*000 cards listed.

Choose the one that matches the adressing that was selected, reboot and worked fine.

Like I said that was for a 8019 chipset, it might not work for you, so might wanna have a look about first.

Just thought it might give you an idea or might even be a similar process to get it working.

Good luck

[Screamin' Soulman]

Don't give up on that Netgear FA311. It uses the natsemi module (National Semiconductor) and is supported in the 2.4.x kernels (don't know about the 2.2.x)

I have two of them and they are champs.