Realtek 8169 1000TX nic crashes boot

New user here (of linux / Knoppix).
I have downloaded and burned the CD (Ver 3.3 2-16-04) and tried booting Knoppix.
:( However, the boot stalls and the computer locks up at trying to get the DHCP address for le0. The screen reports "oops 0000" prints a bunch of other text (seems to be related to the next items that should load) and then crashes the interrupt handler. Only a hard reset will allow cd ejection and restart.
knoppix TestCd completes normally.
I'm pretty sure that the problem is the realtek 8169/8110 gigabit ethernet nic built into the motherboard. If I disable the nic in bios then knoppix completes the boot process and starts up fine (with the exception that the Sounblaster live 5.1 card doesn't seem to be detected (although it finds the soundblaster EMU301 portion of the hardware).

So, I need to know how i can fix these problems?
I tried to search the forums about the Nic card but only found references to the RTL 8139 , which isn't gigabit (1000TX).
Obviously the Gigabit Nic will need a driver for knoppix implemented.
In trying to figure out the Soundblaster issue it said that the driver wasn't in the kernel path, or directory. I'm not sure exactly what it said , since I couldn't print at the time. ( I have since set up the printer but I couldn't find the exact place where I got the message about the path.) I also seem to have a problem saving the configuration, but I need to get the NIc and sound working before approaching that.

Obviously I'm sending this from the windows UI.

Any help would be appreciated. thanks
Scott :?:

The other hardware is :
Amd 2700+ processor
1gig DDR 400 Ram
Gigabyte GA N400 pro2 motherboard
TI4800SE Nvidea graphics card
Windoze XP system (Two NTFS formatted HD.s, Sony DVD/CDRW burner)

Unfortunatly the driver for this NIC is known to be unstable (I read that in the german c't magazine) because the 1gb realtek chip is a, well, lets say, "low cost" solution.. But I'd bet thing are going to improve soon with the next kernel version! So there's not that much you can do about it right now, sorry!

I'm not sure about the nic, but do you also have on board sound in addition to your SB card? If so, try turning it off in your bios and see if the SB card is then detected.

Well, I guess I just have to wait for a kernel that supports the nic.

Funny thing on the sound...I went into Kmix and cranked the levels all the way up..then tried asteroids...no sound.
found the settings info.again under sound setup.its in a setup program for the sound that says not to run it from the x window interface (looks kind of like a DOS window and has no mouse support) . It still reports the drivers not in the path.
however the driver DOES appear to be loaded in the config.(EM10k1?...not the midi emulator I thought)

But when I shut down to exit the system then it played a sound ("shutting down system" quite loudly and clearly..
strange.

Anyway the onboard AC97 sound is disabled in bios.
Also I should mention that this IS an Nforce chipset (although the Nic is not the standard) and I'm using ACPI for interupt handling.

Could that have anything to do with the problems? I don't want to change that setting in bios cause it could trash the XP boot from what I've heard. If I forget to set it back it is a major problem. I want to stay with the LIVE CD for now.


I looked through the configuration of the system and noticed one other thing. Under the network devices it lists the R8169 as m.
Being a noob in linux i'm not sure how I can change it (or what to change it to) unless I do ahard install anmd recompile...which is more than I care to do just to see if I like the OS..

thanks again.
Been cruising looking for any live CD that might support the nic...no luck so far. :cry:

UPDATEö managed to dowload the 3.4 beta ...problems still )sound and language,,,but I postingthis from knoppix..Kewl

another thing that might be worth a try is using the knoppix alsa cheatcode at the boot prompt! I'm not sure about knoppix 3.4 (c't edition) but on 3.3 this defenitely helps with a lot of soundcard related problems.