Knoppix using NatSemi DP83815 stopped working

[Harry Kuhman]

Harry, did you solve the problem with your NIC? I have two working DP83815 cards in my PII box if you need the correct EEPROM settings (not sure what you'd need exactly, though).

Thanks for the offer. I've posted a more detailed response in the other, more general, thread on this issue titled Evidence WinXP "security updates" may break Linux. Let me know if I need to provide any other information. Looking forward to seeing what info you can come up with.

[TigerDragon]

I have the HP Pavilion ze4125... it has the same natsemi chip as mentioned in this thread. I had trouble left and right getting a different live cd distro to work (lnx-bbc) but finally got a version that worked. 2.0 works on my laptop. Networking works with the trivial-net-setup script on that distro, but does NOT work at all on knoppix 3.2. It isn't getting dhcp leases from my router (a NetGear rp114.) I tried setting it up with "manual" options (both by the included netcardconfig script AND manually doing the ifconfig eth0 up and route add default gw etc......) and I can ping the 192.168.0.2 address I give the nic, but I can't ping the router (192.168.0.1) when I do this. With lnx-bbc2.0 I CAN get the network setup without any trouble, but Knoppix3.2 repeatedly will not work. The installed OS is WinXP Home and I do have autoupdates turned on, (and manually check periodically to ensure it's actually updating)

Perhaps if some of you who are having problems would try the lnx-bbc distro, if it works for you, then you know it's not necessarily something that Windows broke. If it doesn't then perhaps it is, but the lnx-bbc includes the diag tools mentioned earlier in this thread, so if it does NOT work, you can still use the diag tools to troubleshoot. I'd really like to get Knoppix working though since I need the extra toys for a project coming up.

Hope this helps some (maybe)

[Harry Kuhman]

I have the HP Pavilion ze4125... it has the same natsemi chip as mentioned in this thread. I had trouble left and right getting a different live cd distro to work (lnx-bbc) but finally got a version that worked. 2.0 works on my laptop. Networking works with the trivial-net-setup script on that distro, but does NOT work at all on knoppix 3.2. It isn't getting dhcp leases from my router (a NetGear rp114.) I tried setting it up with "manual" options (both by the included netcardconfig script AND manually doing the ifconfig eth0 up and route add default gw etc......) and I can ping the 192.168.0.2 address I give the nic, but I can't ping the router (192.168.0.1) when I do this. With lnx-bbc2.0 I CAN get the network setup without any trouble, but Knoppix3.2 repeatedly will not work. The installed OS is WinXP Home and I do have autoupdates turned on, (and manually check periodically to ensure it's actually updating)

Perhaps if some of you who are having problems would try the lnx-bbc distro, if it works for you, then you know it's not necessarily something that Windows broke. If it doesn't then perhaps it is, but the lnx-bbc includes the diag tools mentioned earlier in this thread, so if it does NOT work, you can still use the diag tools to troubleshoot. I'd really like to get Knoppix working though since I need the extra toys for a project coming up.

Hope this helps some (maybe)

I'm downloading lnx-bbc2.0 now and will try it, but I take exception with your conclusion. lnx-bbc might well do some different nic setup than Knoppix, and in doing so make the card work when Knoppix doesn't. We know whatever has happened has not completely broken the nic, as Windows itself can still use the nic. BUt in my case Knoppix 3.1 did work fine, then it stopped working. I think 3.2 worked also, but I can't say that with 100% certainty. My 3.1 CDRs didn't change, something did. The eeprom configuration settings in the NIC simply no longer make sense. I DO NOT know for sure that it was Windows that did it, but it seems like the most likely canidate so far (and it happened very soon after I finally let WinXP download it's "security updates").

Once it is understood what is being changed, I expect more and more versions of Linux will be updated to work around the issue. But as that happens, it is not proof that Windows didn't change something that it should not have.

Your sysptom is somewhat different that what I saw, however. You stated that you could ping the nic. I cannot (until I do the mii-tool and netcardconfig commands). The nic in my HP notebook does receive traffic, but until I do the above commands it will not transmit properly; I'm very surprised that your symptoms are different. I'm using the same router as you, by the way, although I've gone through a hub in some of my tests (how can you ping the nic through the router if the router doesn't know which port 192.168.0.2 is connected to?). Have you watched the traffic to see where the DHCP fails? (In my case it was failing because I could see by watching the connection through the hub that the nic was never sending anything).

By the way, try using 192.168.1.2 instead of 192.168.0 2 unless you've changed the default address of your Linksys. The Linksys should normally be at 192.168.1.1. and should serve addresses with a mask of 255.255.255.0 , so 192.168.0.2 isn't really in a valid range for it. Obviously, if you have other computers on the router pick a higher address. How you could ping 192.168.0.2 is a real mystery.

[StephenB]

Hi,

Did the security patch include an updated device driver for the card that 'updated' the eprom on the nic? Often M$ has a whole bunch of stuff in the same patch.

Stephen.

[TigerDragon]

The device driver was not updated. The date for the driver is May 2002 and when I attempted a rollback there wasn't a previous driver to roll back to. However, Knoppix 3.2 doesn't have networking capabilitied where Lnx-BBC 2.0 does. As I said before, I can ping the eth0 device when I set it up manually, but I can't ping the router or anything else. I don't know how much this helps, but the more information available, the more likely we all are to figure this out.

[TigerDragon]

Harry,
I understand that you say the 3.1 cd worked and then didn't. I'm not arguing that. I'm just trying to give more information to the problem at hand. I am using a NetGear (not a Linksys) and the default IP range is 192.168.0.x not 192.168.1.x...

I'm not pinging through the router, just setting up the nic with either "netcardconfig" with a manual config, or doing the ifconfig, route add, etc... myself without the script. I still have to manually set it up before I can ping it though (as should be the case given the card can't work without an address.) On a side note, I've never been able to get knoppix to work before. Usually it just crashes halfway through the boot process. 3.2 actually boots, but can't do the networking. I tried using mii-tool but when I passed in the parameters -F 100baseTx or -F 100baseTx-HD it gave me a usage statement...

Hope this helps some... probably not, but I tried.

[Harry Kuhman]

Hi,

Did the security patch include an updated device driver for the card that 'updated' the eprom on the nic? Often M$ has a whole bunch of stuff in the same patch.

Stephen.

The Device Driver is never in the NIC, it's code in Windows. If they updated that it is not an issue, although there was no acknowlegement in the discription of the updates that they did.

A NIC can contain two different general types of eeprom or rom information. Some NICs support boot-from-network (often you'll see a NIC with an empty PROM socket on it; this socket is intended to hold a boot prom). This boot prom is used to identify the NIC to the network at boot time and allow a TFTP transfer of a boot image across the network, which the nic uses to get the booting computer started. Unless you are booting from the network this eeprom is not a factor (with Knoppix you are not, you are booting from CD). The other eeprom is generally a small 8 pin serial device. Most or all manufacturers now use this to hold the MAC address (which must be set uniquely for every NIC made) . Having this eeprom available, many (and this includes the Nat Semi chip in question) manufacturers also use it to hold configuration information.

In my case I have determined that the configuration information in my NIC no longer makes sense; it's not the way a manufacturer would want to configure the device). From what I have found so far it should still work, but in a very slow and crippled way (10 mbit half duplex) but it does not, so there must be more changes than I understand yet, the configuration information is somewhat hard for me to follow. No program, including a Windows "security update" should ever change this. It's interesting however that Windows over rides the now bad configuration information and runs the card at the full 100 mb full duplex setting. Knoppix defaults to using the card as it is configured, which fails.

[Harry Kuhman]

Harry,
..... I am using a NetGear (not a Linksys) and the default IP range is 192.168.0.x not 192.168.1.x...

......I tried using mii-tool but when I passed in the parameters -F 100baseTx or -F 100baseTx-HD it gave me a usage statement...

Sorry about my confusion on your router, I was in need of sleep and didn't read close enough.

I did try LNX-BBC 2.0, but I'm not having good results there. It seems to boot fine on my HP Notebook, right up to the point where I'm told to log in as root. Then the keyboard does not respond! I've tried booting several times with the same result each time. I've also tried the same CD in my desktop system and I can boot there just fine. I have no idea why the HP keyboard isn't working, particularly when yours is.

I'm not using the 100baseTx command with mii-tool. I found that it was enough to use a -r command. It has to be done as root, so if you are using the normal shell Knoppix gives you try "sudo mii-tool -r". Then run netcardconfig and see if it can get a DHCP configuration for you.

As a fallback (I hope it's not needed), you might also try copying the trivial-net-setup script from lnx-bcc 2.0 to your hard disk, and then run it from Knoppix. But I expect it's doing much the same thing the two above commands are doing.

There is also another tool called ethtool in Knoppix 3.2 with release dates of 3-May-03 or newer. I'm still learning what all it will give me, but it looks like it might be helpful here if mii-tool isn't enough.

[TigerDragon]

Harry,
To keep it from from freezing you need to set the bios to "Legacy USB Support: Disabled"... I spent a few months scratching my head as to why Lnx-BBC was freezing when some others weren't and some others were. It turned out to be that setting is Enabled by default in the bios and isn't useful for anything so... just disable it and the boot process will stop being a pain

Also, as a side note, I downloaded and ran Slackware-Live and it sets up networking as well. mii-tool -r didn't help. It didn't give me a usage statement, but it didn't do anything useful either. Hope this helps somehow.

[Harry Kuhman]

Harry,
To keep it from from freezing you need to set the bios to "Legacy USB Support: Disabled"... . just disable it and the boot process will stop being a pain

Also, as a side note, I downloaded and ran Slackware-Live and it sets up networking as well. mii-tool -r didn't help. It didn't give me a usage statement, but it didn't do anything useful either. Hope this helps somehow.

I finally got some time to do some more testing last night. The good news: The USB Support trick did work and let me log into LNX-BBC. The bad news: even when I did this I still couldn't get a network connection with trivial-net-setup. It couldn't get a DHCP connection, and even when I set the paramaters manually I wasn't able to connect anywhere or even to ping another system on my network or even ping my Linksys router.

Of course, I have no past experience with it running before I took the Windows updates, so at least for me Knoppix is a better test case; the same software that used to work clearly no longer does.

I did a lot of work with ethtool as well, and will post some data as soon as I can edit it down into just the meaningful stuff.

And here's an interesting bit of news: There is a news story that just last Friday (long after this problem was first posted about here) Microsoft released a Windows Security Update that they now have retracted because some people found that it caused them to lose their network connection! They imply it's a software conflict with other code, but I really wonder - could it have been a further attempt to contine with what we've been seeing, but one that somehow affected some Windows users too?

Link to the story: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor..._bug&printer=1