[SOLVED] No ethernet

[TK492]

Hi,

I'm running Fedora 16 on a Dell Studio XPS laptop and I've been using Wi-Fi since the very beginning. I decided to plug it in via Ethernet while at home but for some reason, it doesn't work.

I was expecting the RJ45 cable to be detected automatically if I were to turn off my wireless.. but nothing. I went to network settings but I don't have the option to add an Ethernet connection. I've been browsing the web most of the night trying to find a solution to what I though should have been a simple thing and most recently tried this explanation:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/...-ethernet.html

Somewhat dated but decided to give it a try anyways. I installed with yumex system-config-network and added an eth0 device. After restarting my system, still no luck.

Here is my ifconfig:

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:167 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:167 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:16730 (16.3 KiB)  TX bytes:16730 (16.3 KiB)

virbr0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 52:54:00:B8:70:80  
          inet addr:192.168.122.1  Bcast:192.168.122.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          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:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:22:FB:BB:9D:0A  
          inet addr:192.168.1.108  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::222:fbff:febb:9d0a/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:14724 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:11219 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:14691261 (14.0 MiB)  TX bytes:1737860 (1.6 MiB)

Does anyone know what may be going on? I would greatly appreciate some help!

Thanks!

[RHamel]

Are you running Fedora 12?

[TK492]

Sorry, I forgot to specify; I'm running Fedora 16

[Doug G]

I have a lot of dell machines (not your model), and many of them need a Dell provided ethernet driver even for windows. Maybe fedora doesn't recognize the ethernet hardware in your system.

Or possibly ethernet is turned off in the BIOS?

[TK492]

It's kind of funny, because I wasn't able to get Debian to install properly on my laptop because it required proprietary drivers for the Wi-Fi (I didn't have internet cable at the time). And now it seems to be the same story but with Ethernet

I doubt it would be in the BIOS because I've ran Windows on it in the past and the internet worked while plugged in, but I can always go double check I didn't change anything at some point or another.

[RHamel]

Post what you get if you do

dmesg | grep eth0

[TK492]

Originally Posted by RHamel

Post what you get if you do

dmesg | grep eth0

I don't get anything, it goes directly back to the prompt.

[RHamel]

Well I would look through Dmesg and see errors you got.

[AndrewSerk]

What does this return?:

lspci|grep Ethernet

[TK492]

Same as dmesg | grep eth0, I don't anything it just brings me to the next prompt.

I'll look into dmesg and see if I can find anything useful.

[AndrewSerk]

Well try to determin what kind/model card you have. You can usually find it with "lspci" or "lsusb" on some machines you can add " -vvv" to the commands to see what kernel module that it may be using among other things.

[TK492]

I've been looking through the outputs of recommended commands but I can't find any sign of something related to internet (except for wi-fi).

I've compared the output to the list found here:

http://wiki.debian.org/HowToIdentifyADevice/PCI

To have an idea of what to lookout for but nowhere is Ethernet mentioned.

What other name could it be labeled as (if possible)? There is a great number of Intel usb controllers as well as PCI bridge's. I can see the HDD's SATA connection, the graphics card, audio, firewire, wifi and sd card slot. These are the ones I can identify to my knowledge but is pretty much it for the most part.

[AndrewSerk]

I wonder if it is enabled in the bios for the motherboard. Dell calls that setup (usually press F2 at the beginning of the boot cycle for Dells)

[TK492]

False alarm!

In the end it was the BIOS, LAN was disabled for some reason

Thanks for your help guys, I would have never thought of checking in there!

[AndrewSerk]

You are Welcome and glad you were able to solve the issue!