# Will not detect NE2000 pci network card (was ISA - fixed)

## MickKi

Hi All,

I hope someone would be able to offer a word of advice on configuring my network, so that I can complete the installation of Gentoo using a basic CD.  This is my results so far:

When the basic Live CD boots up, it tells me that:

```
No Network device auto detectedd . . .
```

I found ne2k-pci.o in the module drivers list so I assumed that this is the driver I need (is this correct?)  So, I typed:

```
cdimage root# modprobe ne2k-pci.o
```

 and got:

```
modprobe: Can't locate module ne2k-pci.o
```

Could you please offer some guidance on how to configure my NIC?

If I were to buy a new NIC which one would be autodetected by the Gentoo Live CD?

----------

## NeddySeagoon

MickKi,

The command is 

```
modprobe ne2k-pci
```

omit the .o on the end of the module name.

Almost any PCI network card should work - including ne2k compatibles.

ISA cards can be a struggle.

----------

## MickKi

NeddySeagoon, thank you for your reply!

I should apologise because my previous post is somewhat incomplete.  I originally typed in the correct command, as you suggested above, but got the following error:

```
/lib/modules/2.4.21-gss/kernel/drivers/enet/ne2k-pci.o: init_module: No such device

/lib/modules/2.4.21-gss/kernel/drivers/enet/ne2k-pci.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.21-gss/kernel/drivers/enet/ne2k-pci.o failed

/lib/modules/2.4.21-gss/kernel/drivers/enet/ne2k-pci.o: insmod ne2k-pci failed
```

The error also suggested that there may be IRQ and I/O port conflicts and that I should check dmesg and syslog.

I have checked dmesg, cat /proc/lspci, also /sbin/lspci -nv, but neither my NE2000, not its IRQ and I/O are there   :Sad: 

All other pci's in my machine are recognised (inc. a winmodem).  I must point out here that the NIC is not yet connected to the router - is that perhaps necessary for Gentoo's Live CD to pick it up?

Any advice would be much appreciated.   :Smile: 

----------

## NeddySeagoon

MickKi,

Running out of IRQs is fairly rare these days as drivers can share interrupts for PCI cards.

Can you post the result of 

```
/sbin/lspci -v
```

  just the 5 lines about your ethernet device please.

Have you reorganised cards in PCI slots recently?

If so, you ned to tell your BIOS about it.

----------

## MickKi

Hi NeddySeagoon,

I did add a second PCI modem recently, in a spare PCI slot, which is detected allright, but the NIC is nowhere to be found!  Running /sbin/lspci -v does not show a NIC card.

Similarly, ifconfig only shows lo, no eth0.   :Confused:    If the card wasn't being picked up by Windoze XP (IRQ11) I would suspect it was faulty.

I checked my BIOS and the PCI cards are assigned automatically under PnP.

----------

## NeddySeagoon

MickKi,

When you add or remove, or just move PCI cards around, you need to set the BIOS option called Reset Configuration Data, or something like that. It usually has choices like enabled or disabled.

You set it to enabled and after booting, it reverts to diabled by itself.

On some sytems it makes a difference to resource allocation and then to device detection.

----------

## MickKi

NeddySeagoon,

I must thank you again for your help, but I think that my machine* running Gentoo will just not respond to this NI card   :Sad: 

 * PIII Coppermine 601MHz, RAM 321MB.

I've enabled and saved the BIOS setting just as you advised, but the same old errors came up after booting the basic CD.

It seems that I better not take up yours or my time anymore and buy another card - they're pretty cheap these days.  I've got a Netgear DG834 router and was thinking of a Netgear NIC (if only to avoid even a remote chance of a compatibility problem).  Any suggestions for a descent Netgear card?

----------

## NeddySeagoon

MickKi,

NE2000 PCI cards work fine with Linux - buying a replacement is not required unless its actually broken. Making it go is an education.

I've never actually bought a new network card, I've got my collection at about £1 each second hand at computer fairs.

You didn't post your lspci output as I requested  above.

I'll help for as long as you are interested.

----------

## Chris W

 *MickKi wrote:*   

> I checked my BIOS and the PCI cards are assigned automatically under PnP.

  If you mean that the BIOS setup screens have an option something like "PNP OS?" and it is set to "Yes" then this may be the cause of the problem.

----------

## MickKi

Hi guys,

Thank you for your suggestions.

 - Chris W, you guessed right, I have had the BIOS PnP OS set to "Yes", because Windoze XP uses it (I think).  Anyway, I tried switching it to "No", and also enabled the BIOS (re)configuration, but the same problem stands.

 - NeddySeagoon, I have saved the output of the /sbin/lspci but it does not contain the card.  This is what it shows:

```
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C693A/694x [Apollo PRO133x] (rev 44)

   Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0

   Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]

   Capabilities: [a0] AGP version 1.0

00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C598/694x [Apollo MVP3/Pro133x AGP] (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])

   Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 0

   Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0

   I/O behind bridge: 0000d000-0000dfff

   Memory behind bridge: e4000000-e5ffffff

   Prefetchable memory behind bridge: d8000000-dfffffff

   Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:07.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C596 ISA [Mobile South] (rev 12)

   Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C596/A/B PCI to ISA Bridge

   Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 0

00:07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT8233/A/C/VT8235 PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])

   Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32

   I/O ports at e000 [size=16]

00:07.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 08) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])

   Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. (Wrong ID) USB Controller

   Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 10

   I/O ports at e400 [size=32]

00:07.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C596 Power Management (rev 20)

   Flags: medium devsel

00:0b.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1371 [AudioPCI-97] (rev 08)

   Subsystem: Ensoniq Creative Sound Blaster AudioPCI64V, AudioPCI128

   Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 32, IRQ 5

   I/O ports at e800 [size=64]

   Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 1

00:0f.0 Serial controller: Rockwell International HCF 56k Data/Fax/Voice Modem (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [8250])

   Subsystem: Askey Computer Corp.: Unknown device 1009

   Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 9

   [virtual] Memory at e6000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]

   Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 1

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon R100 QD [Radeon 7200] (prog-if 00 [VGA])

   Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon AIW

   Flags: bus master, stepping, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 11

   Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]

   I/O ports at d000 [size=256]

   Memory at e5000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]

   Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=128K]

   Capabilities: [58] AGP version 2.0

   Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2

```

I also tried Knoppix on which I guess the Live CD is based and the same error report comes up when I try to install ne2k-pci.

If the card was broken it wouldn't be working with Windoze (albeit it needs a non-M$ driver) and I wouldn't be able to send this message!

I say, NeddySeagoon, $1 for a NIC is good going   :Laughing:   I know what you mean though - it's not the money, it's the principle of getting the darn thing working with Linux.  A mate promised me a Netgear card he has spare, but until he shows up I am determined to resolve this hardware configuration problem (as long as you care to help   :Wink:   )

Anything else I could try?

Thanks again.

----------

## NeddySeagoon

MickKi,

From your lspci output, the card is not being detected. Its maybe a bus mastering issue. Not all PCI slots are created equal. Some can do bus mastering and some cannot Usually on the first four can support bus mastering. Is your network card close only a slot or two away from the AGP slot?

You will need to reset that BIOS flag again if you move something.

I can't help feeling this is a long shot since lspci reads info out of the cards themselves and looks up names in a table from device IDs.

----------

## MickKi

Hi NeddySeagoon,

Because of all the trouble this card has given me, I thought of going back to basics so I decided to open the box to check the chip, in case the Windoze PnP recognised it wrongly as a Novell/Anthem network adapter.  I also thought of moving it up the food-chain in case the PCI slot was too far away from the AGP slot, as per your suggestion.

Just imagine my surprise   :Shocked:   and embarassment   :Embarassed:   when I blew the dust off the card at the very bottom of my machine (last time I looked at it was when I installed it more than 5 years ago) and made some rather significant discoveries:

Well, for starters it is a Novell compatible AT/LANTIC card with a DP83905AVQB chip.  No problem there.

Then I looked further back and all these memories came flooding back to me   :Rolling Eyes:   it has been an ISA card all the time!No surprise then that modprobe-ing it to death with a PCI driver did not show up anything . . . (doh!)

I typed: 

```
modprobe ne io=0x300 irq=3 (after I checked how Windoze XP Device Manager configured it)
```

and hey presto, ifconfig showed a very healthy eth0 ready to go:

```
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:17:09:7F:6B  

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:3 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 

          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:180 (180.0 b)

          Interrupt:3 Base address:0x300 

```

I would like to thank you very much for your help without which I would probably still be scratching my head.  At long last I'm ready now to install Gentoo.  The only thing is that the basic CD that I have is now out of date (x86-basic-1.4-20030911.iso), will this do, or should I be downloading the 2004 version?

----------

## NeddySeagoon

MickKi,

Glad you have it sorted,

As far as I know, providing you do an emerge world -uD (or a stage 1 install) there is never any need to update a Gentoo install CD. Everything becomes current at the first update.

All the best with your install

----------

