problem with netcard in lower slot
I have an IBM thinkpad 20 which was not shipped with a build in net
card, so I have to use a pcmcia card for connectivity. When I first
brought up the system, I used a 3com card and everything worked fine.
However, I had a habit of damaging or disconnecting the tail that comes
out of the pcmcia card so I replaced it with a xircom net card based on
the tulip chipset that doesn't need an adaptor for the net cable.
However, since then I've run into a very strange problem. After boot up,
the network does not correctly work, and requires some system calls to
get it to work.
Here's a sample session after boot up:
$ /sbin/ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:10:A4:BB:1E:68
inet addr:192.168.2.226 Bcast:192.168.2.255
Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:3 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:3
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x200
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:3924 Metric:1
RX packets:1638 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1638 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
$ /sbin/route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use
Iface
localnet * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0
eth0
default 192.168.2.1 0.0.0.0 UG 1 0 0
eth0
$ ping localhost
PING localhost (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=0.0 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=0.0 ms
--- localhost ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.0/0.0/0.0 ms
$ ping 192.168.2.226
PING 192.168.2.226 (192.168.2.226): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.2.226: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=0.0 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.226: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=0.0 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.226: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=0.0 ms
--- 192.168.2.226 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.0/0.0/0.0 ms
$ ping 192.168.2.1
PING 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1): 56 data bytes
--- 192.168.2.1 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss
It seems that the network card is working but outbound packets don't get
out. Also, the route call takes a really, really, really long time to
return the route to the gateway. I found that I could fix the network
with the following commands:
# ifconfig eth0 down
# ifconfig eth0 up
# route add default gw 192.168.2.1
Strangely, this works. Before I found this solution I correctly
configured /etc/network/interfaces and tried the following:
# ifdown eth0
# ifup eth0
But this *does not work* and the network stays down.
One thing I did notice when I tried plugging the 3com pcmcia net card
back in, is that I had to perform this same sequence if the card was in
the lower slot. Is there a difference between the upper and lower slot?
Since the xircom is double size, it has to be inserted into the lower
slot. Is this the actual problem? Is it a hardware issue, or do all net
cards have problems with linux and the lower slot?
For reference, I'm running woody with kernel 2.2.17.
Thanks for your help. :)
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