I'm running Knoppix on an HP Ze4240 notebook that uses the Nat. Semi. DP83815 chip for it's internal nic. For several weeks I used Version 3.1 of Knoppix and it worked fine, total connections to the rest of my local network through a Linksys DSl router and on to the Internet. However, something has happened and Knoppix no longer works. I can't connect with Knoppix 3.2 and I can't even connect any more with the 3.1 CD! However WinXP uses the same hardware and connects just fine if I boot from hard drive rather than the Knoppix CD.

Knoppix isn't getting a DHCP setup. If I manually configure the card I can see it in ifconfig, but I see a TX error and a "carrier" error for every packet sent. I have also been able to determine that the nic is receiving packets just fine, but it is not really sending anything (confirmed by adding a hub and sniffing the wire with another system). I've changed the obvious things like cables and remote systems, and am 100% convinved that something in the notebook has changed in a way that is affecting Knoppix.

Clearly the Knoppix CD didn't change and the hardware still works with WinXP, but something is wrong. Maybe I'm on a wrong path here, but I learned that the DP83815 chip has EEPROM configuration memory and suspect that something has made a change to it that is breaking the Linux driver (actually, I suspect that it was a Windows "security update" that broke the system for Linux but so far can't confirm that).

HP has been useless on this. Their "support" people will not try to track down the original configuration settings for the DP83815 chip and simply respond that that information is "not available".

Which leads me here. I'm hoping that someone might have more insight into this problem, that someone might know something about the DP83815 driver in Linux and can help determine what needs to be done to get Linux talking through the nic again (I'm guessing it's as simple as a setting that is assumed to be right but could be set in software initalization), and how we can progress to get that done, tested and put back into the distribution.

I've technical, but very green to Linux and Knoppix (just starting using Knoppix as a way to get comfortable with Linux before I take windows off the hard drive or restrict it to a small partition). Any suggestions to next steps to take, or the right usenet group(s) to take this to would be extremely welcome.

Also, if anyone can determine what a working EEPROM configuration for a DP83815 eeprom is under knoppix, I would be extremely interested in those eeprom values.
Or if anyone has a contact in HP that might lead to someone in notebook engineering that could locate the configuration information, this would be extremely helpful.