Network driver does not associate with eth0 [SOLVED]

[philip]

After a change of motherboard, I have not been able to get my ethernet connection, with the on-board i/f, to work.

Motherboard: ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe
Ethernet chipset: nVidia
Processor AMD Phenom
I load forcedeth as a module

System:
kernel is Gentoo 2.6.22-gentoo-r5

The i/f is recognized if I boot from a Systemrescue CD and I have manged to read out the mac address.

First I thought it was the udev rules, in the file /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules that remembered my old i/f card (I use the same HD as before).
I changed the content in the 70-persistent-net.rules to comply with my new mac address and eth0, but no success.

If I do
# dmesg | grep forcedeth
there is only one row recognizing the module but no other actions, like associating with eth0.

If I try
# ifconfig eth0
I get "No such interafce" back

I have also tried, what several posts suggest, to delete the 70-persistent-net.rules file and restart my system. But udev does not create a new rules file.

I have also checked that the module, forcedeth, actually gets loaded alright, which is the case.
[*] EISA, VLB, PCI and on board controllers is enabled in the kernel.

I am really stuck here. Unfortunately, as I have no ethernet i/f I can not copy and paste output from dmesg or any thing else from the screen I I use another computer for the post).
Can anyone help?
_________________
/Phil

[NeddySeagoon]

philip,

Please post your lspci output. forcedeth is for nVida ethernet.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[count_zero]

What interfaces are listed when you do:

[philip]

lspci gives:

---- snip
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0760 (rev a2)
---- snip

(Sorry is had the wrog info in my first post - now corrected. It is indeed a nVidia chipset)



ifconfig gives:

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
--------- snip

Just the lo i/f
_________________
/Phil

[NeddySeagoon]

philip,

forcedeth is the right driver for the network chip shown in your lspci.

is it made as a loadable module or built into the kernel ?
If its the former, is is loaded, check lsmod?
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[philip]

I am loading forcedeth as a module

lsmod says:

------ snip -------
soundcore 6240 1 snd
forcedeth 40352 0
nvidia 7093360 20
------ snip -------

The module is actually loaded and visible. Here is where the strange problem show. I have concluded the following so far:
a) The module is the right one and it is loaded
b) The device is visible (through lspci)
c) I know the mac address of the device and I have edited udev's 70-persistent-net.rules file to associate the device with eth0

but for some reason the i/f is still not associated with eth0.

There may be one clue; If I remove the 70-persistent-net.rules file and restart my system, the 70-persistent-net.rules file is not recreated. It is as if udev does not do its thing. But I am unfortunately not that acquanted with udev to figure out what to check for. Or could it still be something else?

SunHateR at this post https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-706372-highlight-m3nht.html has got the on board ethernet to work on the same MOBO as I have, with the forcedeth module loaded. So I know it is possible to get it to work.
_________________
/Phil

[philip]

I solved it.

I upgraded the kernel from version 2.6.22-gentoo-r5 to version 2.6.25-gentoo-r8

This made my on board i/f work.
_________________
/Phil