Knoppix using NatSemi DP83815 stopped working

[Harry Kuhman]

I have the HP Pavilion ze4125... it has the same natsemi chip as mentioned in this thread.

Ethtool (in Knoppix since the May 3 release) is giving me the following rerister values for my NIC:

Address Data
------- ------
0x00 0x3c08
0x01 0x2400
0x02 0x2cd0
0x03 0xcf82
0x04 0x0000
0x05 0x0000
0x06 0x0000
0x07 0x01a1
0x08 0x6630
0x09 0x41c8
0x0a 0xa098
0x0b 0x7d55

Could you please run sudo ethtool -e from a shell and tell me what your values are?

[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).

Could you also run the ethtool command (sudo ethtool -e) and tell me what you have for your nat-semi card(s) with that command? Thanks in advance. And are the cards still working for you with Knoppix?

My values should be in my previous post to TrigerDragon.

[Robert]

It seems to be a lot of trouble with this network card. Sorry I don't understand everythings but I hope my trouble with this hardware can help you: by using knoppix on my HP Omnibook xe 4500 everything works well but not the access to the Network . So I decided to install Knoppix on my Harddrive. To save my "W2K-configuration" I want to save the disk with Ghost. To do this I create a dos-bootdisk with access on our Windows-network. Everything works well until I use ghost: he gives me an amazing time to save my datas (92 hours!). Spend a lot of time to find out why: the procedure works with many others of our Computers and Omnibooks too !! The fact: dowload from the network to my PC -> OK, upload from my PC to the networkdrives -> 1MB per minute !!!! The diag.exe givs me an EEPROM Checksum failur! I think it is not Knoppix that doesn't work but this Hardware from Nat. Semi.
Has somebody an idee how i could resolve this problem ?
Thank you and I wish all the best for Knoppix

[roguestar191]

Thank you soooo much for finding this work around. I have Redhat linux 9.0 installed, it works fine for everything always. I recently downloaded Knoppix for some friends, and decided to try it out. My notebook uses the same network interface as yours, and wouldn't work. (It does in Redhat 9.0 using the default kernel as well as a custom built 2.4.21 with the latest working ACPI patch). Now it all works. Specs below.

HP Pavilion ZE4145
512M DDR SDRAM
16/32/64M Shared Video Memory
IGP320 Graphics Processor (No DRI support yet, POOEY!) (Reported as ATI Radeon Mobility U1)
40 Gig Hard drive
16x24x12x24 DVD+cd/rw

Pure Spiffieness

[JamesX110]

I have an HP/Compaq nx9005 notebook and I have verified that I have the same network card as you and when I use knoppix I have never managed to get the internal NIC working.

The only way I can get onto the LAN is to plug in a 3Com PCMCIA card instead.

Before I used Knoppix I re-installed WinXP Pro and patched it up using the Windows Update feature, as a consequence I cannot say that it would have worked OK if I hadn't installed WinXP and Updated it.

I am sure though that M$ must have screwed my setup and if confirmed that M$ flashed one of my internal hardware's EEPROM's without my consent then Bill Gates has a smack in the mouth coming from me if I ever meet him

I will try to use the mentioned fixes on the command line, but although I'm a techie I'm a Linux newbie so can't get to into things coz of lack of knowledge.

I'll post back if I get my NIC to function OK.

Laterz,

JamesX.....................

[Harry Kuhman]

I have an HP/Compaq nx9005 notebook and I have verified that I have the same network card as you and when I use knoppix I have never managed to get the internal NIC working.

The only way I can get onto the LAN is to plug in a 3Com PCMCIA card instead.

Before I used Knoppix I re-installed WinXP Pro and patched it up using the Windows Update feature, as a consequence I cannot say that it would have worked OK if I hadn't installed WinXP and Updated it.

I am sure though that M$ must have screwed my setup and if confirmed that M$ flashed one of my internal hardware's EEPROM's without my consent then Bill Gates has a smack in the mouth coming from me if I ever meet him

I will try to use the mentioned fixes on the command line, but although I'm a techie I'm a Linux newbie so can't get to into things coz of lack of knowledge.

I'll post back if I get my NIC to function OK.

I can assure you that this NIC did work when I first tried it with Knoppix, although it stopped after I did the security updates.

There is more on this subject in the other thread at
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2164

Try sudo mii-tool -r and then netcardconfig first, this should work. If not, or if you just want to try something else, try booting Knoppix with the expert option and answering all questions n. Please do let us know what progress you make.

[shiyang]

Is there a way to auto run the commands "sudo mii-tool -r" and also reconnect to the DHCP server via netcardcfg?

Is this only possible on HD install?.. if so.. how?

thanks

[mf6]

I've same computer as JamesX110, and same problem, but i'm sure it's not a M$ problem (or -at least- not only): I've booted a new laptop (without initialize the original XP system) with SystemRescueCD, and eth0 don't work until i do a mii-tool -R -r. May be a driver's problem.

Any body know a module's op to force a hardware reset on natsemi.o?

Miguel.

[Harry Kuhman]

I've same computer as JamesX110, and same problem, but i'm sure it's not a M$ problem (or -at least- not only): I've booted a new laptop (without initialize the original XP system) with SystemRescueCD, and eth0 don't work until i do a mii-tool -R -r. May be a driver's problem.

I know in my case it wasn't a driver problem. Knoppix worked fine on my new notebook and connected to the other computers on my network and to the Internet fine. After I did the Windows security update I could no longer connect, with any of the same CDRs that I had previously used on the notebook.

It could still be a Windows issue. Sure, you may not have run the provided Windows software, but do you think that the manufactured didn't run this computer at all before copying a "virgin" copy of Windows and their bundled stuff onto the hard drive and shipping it? If what was run on your machine before it was shipped was newer that what was run on mine, that could well explain why I had to run the Windows Update function before my NIC EEPROM settings were screwed, but yours came pre-screwed.

Any body know a module's op to force a hardware reset on natsemi.o?

Miguel.

That a big maybe for this question. Take a look at the Nat. Semi. diagnostic here: http://www.scyld.com/diag
You'll have to download the source and compile it yourself, but it compiles fine under Knoppix (once you make a partition writeable). Read all the source. The beginning of the source documents several options, including ones that would let you save and restore the eeprom settings. But so far I haven't been able to find anyone who knows what the original settings are (were) or saved them, so I don't have anything to restore.

But if you keep reading the sources, in the actual code (not the comments at the beginning that document the switches) you'll find mention of another switch "-E" that is apparently an "emergency_rewrite". As far as I can tell this command will restore the eeprom to some generic settings that should be safe. But I haven't run it myself.

The owner of scyld.com is a highly recognized Linux contributor, particularly in the area of NIC drivers. If you're going to try something that writes to your notebook NIC, his code is certainly to be trusted more than much other code (particularly Windows!).

If you do decide to try this "emergency" fix, please let us know the results. And please also use the same program to dump the contents of the working NIC EEPROM (it wouldn't be a bad idea to dump and save what's in your EEPROM before you start, too) and post those contents here. And let us know if you do intend to ever run Windows, and if you do, if Windows changes your NIC EEPROM settings again when you do or when you accept the "security updates".

Harry

[H1ghlander]

I've got an HP ZE5185 (2.4G P4, 512M, 20G drive, with the Nat Semi network port),
and I've got the same problem with the network, it just doesn't configure. Possibly, because
I'm on a shared 10mb network, maybe the autonegotiation isn't working, but the card
works on the same network in both XP and Solaris 9/X86 (with a non-sun driver).
Go figure. The rest of it is pretty cool. I saw a couple of things in german that were unexpected
but for the most part it's pretty neat. I'll give a shot by putting my wireless router in front
of the 10mb shared and see if a switched network makes it better. Also, my TDK Global 56k
modem would hang the 07/23/03 version, but was recognized in the 09/08/03 version.
It didn't recognize my new DLink DWL-AG650, but I wasn't too surprised about that.