ubuntu nic card issue [closed]

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I am trying to install NIC r8168 and it shows everything installed ok. It is a brand new NIC and the lights wont come on when I plug in a ethernet. The NIC is that is not working is eth0. Why does it show the r8168 driver being used by 0? My NIC model number is ST1000SPEX if anyone is wondering.

lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by
r8168                 215669  0

ifconfig

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0a:cd:1e:0a:4a  
      UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
      RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
      RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
      Interrupt:43 Base address:0x2000 

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:19:d1:1d:f6:7a  
      inet addr:192.168.1.83  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
      inet6 addr: fe80::219:d1ff:fe1d:f67a/64 Scope:Link
      UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
      RX packets:551467 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:145219 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
      RX bytes:409744342 (409.7 MB)  TX bytes:12233173 (12.2 MB)
      Interrupt:21 Memory:dfde0000-dfe00000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
      inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
      inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
      UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
      RX packets:280 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:280 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
      RX bytes:22608 (22.6 KB)  TX bytes:22608 (22.6 KB)

Ubuntu 11.10 x64

Kernel 3.0.0-12-generic

Answer 1

I'm not sure what version of Ubuntu (or what kernel version) you're using, so I'm going to assume you're at least on the 2.6 kernel series.

I've had similar problems in the past, and what usually helps is downloading the latest version of the driver from the vendor's website. In this case, download Realtek's latest driver:

Realtek Gigabit NIC Driver Downloads

Scroll to the section titled "Unix (Linux)", and download the appropriate driver, which is most likely the one that says "LINUX driver for kernel 2.6.x and 2.4.x (Support x86 and x64)".

It will be a tarball, so you'll have to extract it on the command line and compile the driver:

$ tar xvf <whatever_the_name>.tar.gz
$ cd <whatever_directory_was_created_from_tarball>
$ more INSTALL

I wrote more INSTALL because more than likely there is a file named "INSTALL" in there, and you should read it for specific instructions on how to install that particular driver on your platform. However, it more often than not will tell you to perform the following commands:

$ ./configure
...                 # a bunch of output
$ make
...                 # a bunch of compiler output
$ sudo make install
...                 # a bunch of copying of files to their appropriate places

Once the compile process is complete, it will SHOULD automatically unload and load the module for you. If not, do it yourself:

$ sudo modprobe -r r8168
$ sudo modprobe r8168

That should be it.