Home network stopped working

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02-19-2007
smolloy

Home network stopped working
Hi all.
This is a direct result of this thread, but I thought it made sense to start a new thread as this is weird enough to deserve a topic all of its own.

My network looks like this,
Internet <-> DSL box <-> (eth0 via dsl0) SuSE Desktop (eth1) <-> Router <-> Laptop

As shown in the thread I linked to above, the trouble all started when I entered the command,

Code:

ethtool -s eth1 autoneg off

As soon as I did this my internal network stopped working. After several frustrating hours of investigation I have discovered,
1. The main internet connection on my desktop (eth0 via dsl0) is fine. I'm using it to post this.
2. The router which connects my desktop to my laptop is fine. I have checked its configuration via the laptop.
3. I can ping eth1 from the desktop with sub-microsecond response time.
4. I can not ping the router from the desktop, however, as noted above, I can connect to the router from the laptop.
5. The lights at the back of the computer are on for eth0 but not for eth1. This worries me a lot and makes me think that the card is no longer working (although the fact that I can still ping it from the desktop is reassuring).
I have tried deleting the configuration for eth1 and reconfiguring it via yast, but that didn't help, and I've tried "ethtool -s eth1 autoneg on" to reverse whatever problem was caused by the initial command with no success.

I get the following output to ethtool,

Code:

Settings for eth1: Supported ports: [ MII ] Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 1000baseT/Full Supports auto-negotiation: Yes Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full 100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full 1000baseT/Full Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes Speed: 10Mb/s Duplex: Half Port: MII PHYAD: 1 Transceiver: external Auto-negotiation: on Supports Wake-on: g Wake-on: g Link detected: no

Note the speed setting of 10Mb/s and the duplex setting of "half" -- I am totally unable to change these to 100 and "full". "Link detected: no" kinda worries me as well.

Sorry for the extremely long post, but I am quite worried that I have damaged my network card, and I wanted to give as much detail as possible.

Can anyone help me get my network working again?
02-20-2007
framp

Quote:

Sorry for the extremely long post, but I am quite worried that I have damaged my network card, and I wanted to give as much detail as possible.

I'd be glad to have all postings be so detailed like your's ;)

Looks like your desktop doesn't communicate with your router any more. You wrote you enabled autonegotiation on your desktop again but it still doesn't work any more.

Did you check with

Code:

ethtool eth1

whether your desktop did accept your modifications?
02-21-2007
smolloy

Thanks for the reply framp. I find it's difficult to know how much info to post -- sometimes short'n'snappy gets people's attention, but requires them to ask lots of questions, while long'n'boring might dissaude people from reading to the end, but answers all the obvious questions!

As to you question, yes I checked that autonegotiation was re-enabled by looking at the output of ethtool for confirmation (you can see the output in my previous post). I'm not, however, able to change the values of duplex and speed, back to their original values of "full" and "100".

What worries me is that the lights on the eth1 network connection on the desktop don't light-up any more. It seems that the network card is off, or broken. :S

Also, when a card responds to pings from the same computer that it is installed in, does that mean that it is alive, or is it fooling me?
02-21-2007
framp

Quote:

Originally Posted by smolloy

What worries me is that the lights on the eth0 network connection on the desktop don't light-up any more. It seems that the network card is off, or broken. :S

I'm confused. In your previous post you said you have problems with eth1 - now eth0 doesn't work any more. I suspect that's typo and the light on eth1 is off.

Why don't you just try to connect your Labtop directly to eth1 and give it a valid IP address and then ping from LT to DT? That way you can test whether the eth1 card is broken. If it doesn't work use another cable and if it still doesn't work you have to buy a new card. If it works then there might be a problem with your router. Try a reboot of your router.

Quote:

Also, when a card responds to pings from the same computer that it is installed in, does that mean that it is alive, or is it fooling me?

Well, that's a test of the TCP/IP stack of your desktop - but there is no bit xferred. A valid test is a ping of the routers IP address from your desktop.
02-22-2007
smolloy

Quote:

Originally Posted by framp

I'm confused. In your previous post you said you have problems with eth1 - now eth0 doesn't work any more. I suspect that's typo and the light on eth1 is off.

Sorry. You're right. That was a typo. I'll edit the post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by framp

Why don't you just try to connect your Labtop directly to eth1 and give it a valid IP address and then ping from LT to DT? That way you can test whether the eth1 card is broken. If it doesn't work use another cable and if it still doesn't work you have to buy a new card. If it works then there might be a problem with your router. Try a reboot of your router.

Tried connecting the laptop to the desktop. The IP address of eth1 on the desktop is 192.168.10.1, so I set the IP of the laptop to be 192.168.10.2 and set its gateway as 192.168.10.1.

No result. Neither the lights on the desktop or on the laptop network plug came on. The result of "ping 192.168.10.1" was "Destination Host Unreachable". I tried two cables (one crossover and one regular).

Nothing.

Damn it.

Does this mean my network card is broken? If so, I've got trouble, cos it's part of the motherboard. I wonder if Asus has a good returns policy....

Thanks for your help.
02-22-2007
framp

Quote:

Originally Posted by smolloy

Tried connecting the laptop to the desktop. The IP address of eth1 on the desktop is 192.168.10.1, so I set the IP of the laptop to be 192.168.10.2 and set its gateway as 192.168.10.1.

Did you use a crossover cable? Sorry smolloy, I forgot this to mention :oops: .

Quote:

Does this mean my network card is broken? If so, I've got trouble, cos it's part of the motherboard. I wonder if Asus has a good returns policy....

Did you reset your router?

May be it's time to buy a new card which costs about $5 - that's not much - disable the internal card in your BIOS and use the new card.
02-22-2007
smolloy

Quote:

Originally Posted by framp

Did you use a crossover cable? Sorry smolloy, I forgot this to mention :oops: .

Yeah. I used a crossover cable, and when that didn't work I tried a regular cable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by framp

Did you reset your router?

I tried that in the original setup and it didn't help. This time I connected the laptop directly to the desktop, so the router wasn't in the circuit, and it wouldn't have made a difference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by framp

May be it's time to buy a new card which costs about $5 - that's not much - disable the internal card in your BIOS and use the new card.

Dammit. The computer's only 4 months old, and already I need new hardware for it. :( Now I'm back into the murky swamp of linux hardware compatibility issues. :???:

Do you have any idea what caused this problem? It can't be a coincidence that the card failed at the exact moment I executed the ethtool command, but I'm absolutely amazed that changing the settings with a simple command can actually kill hardware!!!

Confused&annoyed.