Got roped into helping a neighbor get off XP on an old Compaq Presario.
Installed oS 13.1 from DVD and the install went surprisingly well - after
adding a GB of ram - but the ethernet is not working. It works fine when
booted to WIN XP but neither the port light nor the hub light indicates a
cable connection when booted to oS. modprobe indicates that the 8139too
driver is loaded and the system hardware indicates that the system sees the
device. Looks to me like something I’ve seen before - the driver is not
turning the darned interface on. Is there option for the driver to power up
the interface?
I have an older computer with that device. I am not having problems with it.
Checking the BIOS, I see that:
wake on LAN – disabled
Lan – enabled
Boot from LAN – enabled, but last in the boot sequence.
I presume that the BIOS is initializing the device because of those settings. So maybe check if there are BIOS settings on the system you are working on that might help.
> I have an older computer with that device. I am not having problems
> with it.
>
> Checking the BIOS, I see that:
>
> wake on LAN – disabled
> Lan – enabled
> Boot from LAN – enabled, but last in the boot sequence.
>
> I presume that the BIOS is initializing the device because of those
> settings. So maybe check if there are BIOS settings on the system you
> are working on that might help.
>
This old beast (you should have seen the dust bunnies!!) only has the last 2
BIOS options available. I looked all over for WOL - no joy. That should
give you an idea of the age.
I’m running with an old PCI ethernet card to get it up. I couldn’t find
anything promising in a version of the driver source code so I guess I’ll
stick with what worked…