Computer restarts, eth0 disappears

[magicmycote]

I am running debian 2.6.17.12, and have an 8139 realtek card installed...set up to use static IP. When I shutdown and restart, the network works fine, it finds the card and assigns the appropriate IP address and internet, networking, etc works fine.

Sometimes the power fluctuates where I live which causes the computer to reboot (I know, need to fix that too)...or sometimes I press the reset button on the computer during the course of testing, etc...and when this happens, the network card is not detected upon booting up.

DMESG looks the same, either way:

ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:0a.0[A] -> Link [LNKC] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
eth0: RealTek RTL8139 at 0xe800, 00:50:ba:d7:dc:a1, IRQ 5
eth0: Identified 8139 chip type 'RTL-8139B'



but if I shutdown -r , it comes up fine...if I press reset or it reboots due to power, then running ifconfig up/down cannot find eth0...only loopback device.

What would cause this? ..even though the device is detected during bootup?

thx in advance

[drl]

Hi, magicmycote.

This is not a solution post, but rather a sympathy post, with a datapoint for you.

One of my boxes has Xandros (Debian-derivative) running on it most of the time. I use static IPs also. I almost never off-power it, but I do occasionally re-boot to boot into other OSs. After having used another OS and re-booting, I will sometimes encounter a similar problem.

I have found that an additional re-boot usually clears things up.

I suspect that Debian has trouble with NICs that may be left in strange conditions.

The problem is not too troubling for me -- any boot is an inconvenience, and a bit of extra time for that additional boot is not much more time -- so I have never pursued the problem.

I have been installing Debian etch on the same box to a different disk and I have not noticed the problem there ( yet ).

To help alleviate your problem, I suggest a UPS -- as you undoubtedly have thought about. Luckily, around here, a retail organization decided a few years ago to rid themselves of small UPSs for their cash registers, and one of the salvage shops had hundreds of these items at attractive prices. The batteries are bit pricey when they need replacing, but now I would not consider running anything of value without such protection.

Best wishes ... cheers, drl