help: 8139 network card

Hi all,

My Linux box has one 8139 card, but needs some tricky booting.

When it boots straight into Linux, no network services are available,
even a trivial ping fails miserably ("host unreachable").

Booting Windows first, then rebooting Linux again -without turning
power off- and voilà!, networking magically appears.

I guess Windows initializes something that Linux needs later, so
the question is: how do I tell Linux to do it itself?

Thanks in advance

TheRG

On 1 Oct 2006 09:53:25 -0700, TheRG <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> My Linux box has one 8139 card, but needs some tricky booting.

Is it a real 8139, or a clone, and what module (rtl8139 or 8139too)?
Some Linux versions might try to use rtl8139 for clones which might not
work if 8139too is the proper module. I had trouble with Dlink DFE-530TX+
nics going into a frenzy with heavy packet loss (using 8139too, when auto
system use of rtl8139 did not work). My only solution in that case was to
force 10baseT (using mii-tool -A 10BaseT-FD,10baseT-HD eth0, full-duplex
worked).

> When it boots straight into Linux, no network services are available,
> even a trivial ping fails miserably ("host unreachable").
>
> Booting Windows first, then rebooting Linux again -without turning
> power off- and voilà!, networking magically appears.
>
> I guess Windows initializes something that Linux needs later, so
> the question is: how do I tell Linux to do it itself?

I used to have trouble booting directly from Windows to Linux because
Windows seemed to not reset the nic to a state that Linux could use. But
now it seems to be the other way around. If I warm boot from Linux to
Windows, Win XP does not see my nic (have to shutdown and cold boot).

David Efflandt wrote:

> Is it a real 8139, or a clone, and what module (rtl8139 or 8139too)?
> Some Linux versions might try to use rtl8139 for clones which might not
> work if 8139too is the proper module. I had trouble with Dlink DFE-530TX+
> nics going into a frenzy with heavy packet loss (using 8139too, when auto
> system use of rtl8139 did not work). My only solution in that case was to
> force 10baseT (using mii-tool -A 10BaseT-FD,10baseT-HD eth0, full-duplex
> worked).

Yes, the module used is 8139too. The NIC is a Skintek SK-220TX, its
chipset label has two words: "RTL8139D" and "28106S1".

I tried also with a similar card, one Edimax that claims to work
with Linux, chipset labeled "RTL8139D" and "25144S1". Both behave
exactly the same way, i.e. need Windows warm start first.

This is what lspci says about both NICs:

01:01.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
RTL-8139/8139C (rev 10)

and this is what mmi-tool -v reports:

eth0: 10 Mbit, half duplex, no link
product info: vendor 00:00:00, model 0 rev 0
basic mode: 10 Mbit, half duplex
basic status: no link
capabilities:
advertising:


> I used to have trouble booting directly from Windows to Linux because
> Windows seemed to not reset the nic to a state that Linux could use. But
> now it seems to be the other way around. If I warm boot from Linux to
> Windows, Win XP does not see my nic (have to shutdown and cold boot).

Changing "PnP OS" settings did not help either: "NO" and "YES"
have both the same effect. Did you try it in your machine?

The only way I can do a cold boot directly into Linux is to reset
the BIOS's ESCD data. Trouble is, you have to tweak CMOS settings
every time you cold-boot (yes, it's faster than booting Windows
first, but it forces you to be in front of the keyboard).

Thanks,

JL