Networking adapter quirk

[jayco77]

On my laptop, when I boot into the livecd with "gentoo nohotplug nodhcp", I'm able to do a "modprobe natsemi" and "net-setup eth0" and choose "dhcp" and my Linksys 4 port router assigns an IP to my laptop and it connects to the net just fine. I'm able to complete the install from stage one perfectly, following the instructions on this site. I emerge hotplug, grub, and pcmcia as mentioned in the instructions (along with everyything else). When I remove the CD, and do my reboot, my network connection is dead in the water. I've made sure the module is listed in the /etc/modu? file. I've tried setting /etc/conf.d/net to use DHCP for eth0. I've also tried manually assigning an IP. I've checked and double-checked my typing, to make sure I didn't mis-type a gateway, or an IP. I've tried unmerging hotplug, and rebooting. I've tried genkernel using gentoo-sources (twice) and ac-sources. I've tried building a custom kernel. I've made sure that the natsemi 83815 adapter is loaded as a module (though I've also tried to load it in the kernel). Nothing I do seems to get the network card to work. I've emerged ethtool to give me some more options of what to do with the card. I've tried disabling negotiation, and wake-on-lan, with no results. I even tried loading knoppix, but I still end up with the same messages when I do a dmesg|grep eth0:

eth0: NatSemi DP8381[56] at 0xdcbbc000, some numbers, IRQ 11
eth0: autonegotiation did not complete in 4000 usec.
eth0: link up
eth0: remaining active for wake-on-lan

I *know* the NIC card is good. I *know* the cable is good (I've tried two different ones). I *know* the router is good (I have two windows machines on it, AND like I said, it works when I boot into the livecd. After install, I can reboot into the livecd, modprobe and net-setup again, and be on the network.

I *want* this to work. I want to use gentoo. I don't want to buy a pcmcia network card, when I know this one works. I've spent a whole other thread over on another forum (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,7812446~root=unixdsl~mode=flat)
trying to fix this problem.

Somewhere on the site I read that gentoo-sources is the kernel closest to the livecd kernel, so I'm not certain if it's a kernel problem. I thought it would be hotplug maybe, but I unmerged that and it didn't seem to solve the problem. If anyone has *any* suggestions, I would very much appreciate it. If anyone can confirm that this card works (or even that they have not been able to get it to work) I would appreciate that as well.

Purchasing a PCMCIA NIC card is an option for me, but I *know* this card works fine during the livecd, and I'm more concerned with figuring out why it doesn't work and fixing it, than I am getting the computer on the network (with another card) at the moment.

Jay

[Jondu]

I am having the exact same problem as you Jay. I have tried just about everything that you have tried. I am using the the gentoo-sources kernel. This is really making me crazy. The only difference is that you are using a laptop and I am using a desktop. If I make any headway I will make sure and post it.