redhat8 sees net card but cannot activate, tried 3 cards

after installing RH 8 on an old HP PII machine, everything works except the net card. I've read everthing in the forums and tried different configs and removing and re-installing 3 different cards but cannot activate any of them.....
the OS sees each card after install and detection.
i turned off Plug n Play in BIOS after reading that it could create problem
but that didn't help at all.
the card in there now is a 3com 3C905b PCI
i tried an etherlink III ISA card and it wouldn't activate either
i have it set for dhcp
i'm not sure what IRQ to set it at, though I tried using 3 to no avail
the driver module seems to be in the right place as well

please help if you can,

John A.

Can you post the output of "/sbin/ifconfig -a"? Also, what happens if you run "ifup eth0"?

Link encap: Local loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 mask 255.0.0.0
UP Loopback Running MTU:16436 Metric 1
RX packets:72 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets: 72 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
Collisions: 0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:4682 (4.5 kb) Tx bytes 4682 (4.5kb)

Ifup eth0

configuration for eth0 not found

I see - it hasn't even detected the card. What happens if you load the driver with "/sbin/modprobe 3c59x"?

i ran this command as suggested and restarted machine
still the same message....cannot activate eth0
why does it show up in the network devices listing?
doesn't that mean it does "see" the card?

John A.

You weren't supposed to reboot the machine afterwards - that will revert the driver loading. Instead, run "/sbin/modprobe 3c59x" and then rerun "/sbin/ifconfig -a" and see if it has detected the interface.

What network device listing do you mean that it shows up in? It doesn't show up in the "ifconfig -a" listing, which is, after all, authoritative.

i re ran modprobe 3c59x and it showed up in ifconfig -a with a hardware address, an IRQ and a mem. address it is using IRQ9

i looked at the network device hardware applet in the gui and it shows up there as usual too but in the "inactive" state. I push the activate button and it says it cannot activate the device eth0

there were 2 modprobe.conf files on the system...one with a "~" at the end of it and so I deleted the one with the "~". It had info on the other 2 net cards I had tried before.

i don't understand why restarting the machine would unload the driver.
that makes no sense to me. can u explain?

anyway, maybe the card is bad....should i try another?

Since the module loaded fine, it seems your card is working perfectly. It's probably just something strange with the configuration. If you modprobe.conf, I can probably help you fix it. Speaking of which - since you mentioned modprobe.conf, I assume that you're using a 2.6 kernel, is that true?

The driver is lost when you reboot since modprobe only loads the module into RAM - it doesn't modify any files.

i am using 2.4 kernel red hat 8

i checked the ifcfg-eth0:1 and it is set for dhcp and activate on boot

what else can I try?

thanks again,

John

Sorry, I meant to say that it would be nice of you posted your modules.conf. Sorry for the typo.