[Solved] Ethernet conflict between Arch and Windows 10

Calibanio · 2016-03-02 17:26:59

I have already solved the issue I was having, but I am posting here because I have no idea what was going on.

I have been dual booting Arch Linux and Windows for several years simply because I want to play games on occasions, as I am sure is the case for a lot of people. Yesterday I decided to finally "upgrade" to Windows 10, and everything seemed to go relatively smooth.

The only issue I encountered was that for whatever reason Windows 10 could not recognize my motherboards network adapter, so I went ahead to my motherboards website and downloaded the latest driver, installed it, and everything was fine.

Today I rebooted back into Arch to find that systemctl had failed to start dhcpcd, the first time in, I don't know, two years or so. Neither journalctl nor systemctl gave me any helpful information as to what was actually the problem.

My first clue was that there may have been some conflict between Windows 10 and Arch, a clue which to me seemed completely irrational since I can't see how they would be correlated at all, so I didn't investigate it to begin with.

After a while of trying several different things, I finally went into Windows 10 again and uninstalled the ethernet driver I had just installed. To my surprise the ethernet in Windows 10 all of a sudden worked, without the ethernet driver I had seemed to be needing before. After this I booted up Arch again, checked systemctl straight away, and got no errors, all of a sudden my ethernet is working again.

Conclusion then, seems to be that the issue I was having with the ethernet in Arch, was correlated to the installation of the ethernet driver I had installed in Windows 10. The only explanation I can come up with for this is essentially some interference on a hardware level.

Has anyone encountered something similar? Does anyone have a clue as to why this actually happened?

The motherboard is an Asus Sabertooth Z87.

Last edited by Calibanio (2016-03-04 16:32:44)

jasonwryan · 2016-03-02 17:31:48

Please edit your post and choose a title that actually reflects your issue: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … ow_to_post

Calibanio · 2016-03-02 17:39:30

jasonwryan wrote:

Please edit your post and choose a title that actually reflects your issue: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … ow_to_post

I hope that's better.

alphaniner · 2016-03-02 18:40:56

Very little info to go on, but these kinds of issues are often related to WOL configuration on the Windows side.

Calibanio · 2016-03-02 21:34:59

Yeah, sorry about that. The reason I have given so little info is simply because the logs wouldn't really tell me anything which was of use. Consequently, I don't really expect that anyone will know what caused the issue. I thought I would post anyways and see if someone had at least a clue.

My best guess is that the conflict lies on UEFI level, but exactly how that would go about I don't know.

Thanks for the info, not sure whether it is WOL related but it might be worth looking into.

severach · 2016-03-03 05:26:10

I haven't seen this since serial and parallel ports from the 1980's. A power off would reset things that DOS didn't know about.

Hidden hardware settings are easy to check by powering off the computer. By off, I mean unplugged, no battery (for laptops), and press the power button to drain the power. Over time you'll discover how thorough the power off must be to solve the problem.

It's easy to fix by changing brands. The harder fix is to have the hidden settings fixed in the driver.

e_tank · 2016-03-04 09:36:49

are u doing a full shutdown from windows? windows 10 hibernates by default, maybe that's causing a prob.

Calibanio · 2016-03-04 16:32:32

severach wrote:

I haven't seen this since serial and parallel ports from the 1980's. A power off would reset things that DOS didn't know about.
Hidden hardware settings are easy to check by powering off the computer. By off, I mean unplugged, no battery (for laptops), and press the power button to drain the power. Over time you'll discover how thorough the power off must be to solve the problem.
It's easy to fix by changing brands. The harder fix is to have the hidden settings fixed in the driver.

This might be what caused the issue, unfortunately I can't seem to reproduce the situation I was in before. Installing the driver again doesn't cause any issue under Arch anymore. The line of thinking seems reasonable though; the ethernet device seem to have been put in a state incompatible with Arch, and whether that was caused on direct hardware level or by UEFI I don't know.

e_tank wrote:

are u doing a full shutdown from windows? windows 10 hibernates by default, maybe that's causing a prob.

I did a full shutdown yes, I think if this had been the problem other devices would have ceased functioning properly as well, but it was only my ethernet which stopped working.

Anyway, I am not sure whether I will get anything else out of this, I think I will have to read up on UEFI a bit and see how it stores information about previous boots etc. The issue doesn't exist anymore so I can do my computing as usual, I was just curious what could have been the cause of this.

I will mark as solved, if anyone has any other input that would be appreciated.

Arch Linux

#1 2016-03-02 17:26:59

[Solved] Ethernet conflict between Arch and Windows 10

#2 2016-03-02 17:31:48

Re: [Solved] Ethernet conflict between Arch and Windows 10

#3 2016-03-02 17:39:30

Re: [Solved] Ethernet conflict between Arch and Windows 10

#4 2016-03-02 18:40:56

Re: [Solved] Ethernet conflict between Arch and Windows 10

#5 2016-03-02 21:34:59

Re: [Solved] Ethernet conflict between Arch and Windows 10

#6 2016-03-03 05:26:10

Re: [Solved] Ethernet conflict between Arch and Windows 10

#7 2016-03-04 09:36:49

Re: [Solved] Ethernet conflict between Arch and Windows 10

#8 2016-03-04 16:32:32

Re: [Solved] Ethernet conflict between Arch and Windows 10

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