Network Connection Dying.

skparkes · 2004-02-09 19:10:19

I am having a very annoying problem. My network connection only lasts a few minutes, and then it justs stops. I realize I may not be looking in the right places for the answer, so I would be glad to follow any suggestions or provide any additional info anyone might want.

I recently did a major upgrade on a lot of my hardware. I bought a new NForce 3 motherboards and a Athlon 64 3000+ cpu. I kept most everything else except for the ram. Since this is a NForce 3 board, and I didn't feel like patching the 2.4 kernels, I am running the 2.6 series. This same problem has come up in 2.6.1 and 2.6.2.

Neither of my onboard NICs are supported by a kernel module, so I have loaded in a PCI ethernet card. The first one was a netgear that needed the natsemi module. I added natsemi to my rc.conf and have dhcp enabled. It all boots up fine and connects just fine too. After a few minutes, the connection stops though. I threw in a realtek 8139 PCI card which uses a different module and I got the same results. I am sure the PCI cards are fine, they have been tested in another computer, and under windows in the same PC that linux won't work on.

I haven't been able to sync pacman for awhile because my connection keeps dying in the middle of downloading.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Are there any particular logs I should look at?

Thanks,

Isamoor

andy · 2004-02-10 09:39:26

What happens if you use a static IP instead of DHCP ?

skparkes · 2004-02-10 13:34:36

Good question, I shall try to find out.

Thanks,

Isamoor

skparkes · 2004-02-17 18:29:43

Well, I have eliminated faulty hardware as the cause. Also, I've run other linux distros on the same computer and they've worked just fine. So now it's down to one of the packages I'm using in Arch or the way one of them is configured.

The most annoying part is that I can't update my system because the connection keeps dying before pacman -Syu can finish.

Thanks for the help.

Missing arch bunches!

Isamoor

andy · 2004-02-17 21:45:37

Well, from here on it's pretty much guessing. Turning off ACPI is always worth a try - as a kernel parameter and/or in the BIOS.

Also, turning off as much as possible in the BIOS that is not needed (especially the stuff coming from the NForce3 chipset).

As I said - just guessing ;-)

dp · 2004-02-17 23:54:57

what says

 ifconfig -v

before and after stop of working?

any info from

dmesg

(errors about interupts or so?)

skparkes · 2004-02-18 14:30:48

Well, what do you know? The noapic option seems to have fixed it. Seems like that apci crap is good for all of nothing. Now I'm spending some time trying to get everything else back up and going. I've let the system go to shit in the last month.

Is there anyway, short of not compiling apci support into the kernel, that I can make it boot with noapic everytime? I'm still running lilo since grub is giving me fits. Can I squeeze it in lilo.conf anywhere?

Thank you very much for all your help.

Isamoor

robot5x · 2004-02-18 14:42:56

You can manage acpi at boot-time with append in lilo.conf...
append = "acpi=off"
Should do it.

Xentac · 2004-02-18 16:20:28

apic and acpi are two different things. ACPI is a power management system. APIC is something usually used for SMP systems, but added to some single cpu machines (can't tell you exactly what it does). The default kernel has it enabled, and doing an append line (or adding to an existing) should fix it.

Don't make it acpi=off though; acpi isn't your problem. Make it exactly the thing you typed in when you first booted (noapic).

I just wanted to make sure that you knew the difference between acpi and apic.

Mr Green · 2004-02-18 16:35:12

Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller....

Like sounds good....but no idea what it does (SMP)

Mr Green

sorry must not confuse issue.....

robot5x · 2004-02-18 16:40:33

Sorry - I misread the earlier post. First it's apic, then apci...my eyes are getting blurry.

skparkes · 2004-02-18 19:43:08

Yea, I just assumed apci and apic were the same thing. Kinda like center and centre, just some bloke with another language programing it.

Well actually, I need to make sure it was apic that was giving me fits. I actually upgraded my kernel too, and I noticed 2.6.3 had many fixes for network modules.

Thanks for the ammend line, lilo's man page is way too convoluted, and lilo.conf's man page is way too simplistic. Do you really think the same person wrote both?

Thanks,

Isamoor

Arch Linux

#1 2004-02-09 19:10:19

Network Connection Dying.

#2 2004-02-10 09:39:26

Re: Network Connection Dying.

#3 2004-02-10 13:34:36

Re: Network Connection Dying.

#4 2004-02-17 18:29:43

Re: Network Connection Dying.

#5 2004-02-17 21:45:37

Re: Network Connection Dying.

#6 2004-02-17 23:54:57

Re: Network Connection Dying.

#7 2004-02-18 14:30:48

Re: Network Connection Dying.

#8 2004-02-18 14:42:56

Re: Network Connection Dying.

#9 2004-02-18 16:20:28

Re: Network Connection Dying.

#10 2004-02-18 16:35:12

Re: Network Connection Dying.

#11 2004-02-18 16:40:33

Re: Network Connection Dying.

#12 2004-02-18 19:43:08

Re: Network Connection Dying.

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