Problems with nForce410 networking.

[rubinho]

I have an ASRock board with the GeForce6100+nForce 410 chipsets (ASRock K8NF4G-SATA2) using a Sempron 3100+.
It works nicely in Windows, but I'm having a hard time to get it to work with Linux...

None of the distributions I have tried seem to properly use the network (onboard) port, some of them even recognize it and try to use the forcedeth driver, with no success.

Distros I have tried:

Ubuntu 5.04 (old kernel, which doesn't even start X with VESA)
Kurumin 5.0
SuSE 10.1 beta (amd64)
Kanotix 2005.4 (amd64)
Mandriva One 2006 (recognizes MCP51 network device, but doesn't work, also, doesn't come with kernel sources...)

I had the most success with SuSE and Kanotix, managing to get 3D and sound to work properly.
Network, on the other hand no, despite trying both forcedeth and then nForce 3.10 drivers.


I just don't know what to do to get it to work.
If you need more information I can provide them.

thanks for your patience

[gerick]

I have the Asus A8N-VM CSM, which is NVIDIA GeForce 6150 + nForce 430, but this might still be relevant.

One trick I learned with dual-boot is that something gets loaded the onboard NIC (firmware?) by the windows drivers that prevents Linux from using the NIC. The trick is after shutting down Window XP, turn off the machine, and UNPLUG it (ATX still powers the board with 5vdc even when turned off). Leave the machine unplugged for about 10 seconds, plug back in, then see if forcedeth works.

[kenyee]

I use Kanotix 2005-04 w/ my CSM board w/ no problems except the quirk gerick mentioned.

Also, if you haven't checked the network port in Windows yet, try it to make sure you don't have broken hardware. Doesn't make sense that so many distros don't work, especially ones known to work on the Asus 6150 board...

[rubinho]

The tip suggested worked... Weird as hell to me. Now posting on Mandriva's Firefox...

Thanks gerick and kenyee.

[gerick]

Originally Posted by rubinho

The tip suggested worked... Weird as hell to me.

Yeah, makes dual-boot a real pain. I wish someone could figure that one out and come up with a better work around than unplugging.

[rubinho]

Hmmm...

Testing other operating systems, I noticed the same bug affects BeOS/Zeta (which are not based on Linux, although they use a port of forcedeth).

Could it be a Forceware bug on Windows or a problem with the chipset implementation??

[kenyee]

You can warm boot from Linux to Windows w/o problems, so it seems like weird initialization step is missing from the Linux nvnet driver...

[rubinho]

I believe the opposite...
ForceWare driver on Windows misses a closing step...

I say that because Forcedeth on kernel has the same problem as nvnet...

[kenyee]

as a former driver writer (firmware coder in a different life), we always had to initialize everything. Leaving stuff "missing in a closing step" just wasn't done... :-)

[seanyseansean]

Originally Posted by gerick

I have the Asus A8N-VM CSM, which is NVIDIA GeForce 6150 + nForce 430, but this might still be relevant.

One trick I learned with dual-boot is that something gets loaded the onboard NIC (firmware?) by the windows drivers that prevents Linux from using the NIC. The trick is after shutting down Window XP, turn off the machine, and UNPLUG it (ATX still powers the board with 5vdc even when turned off). Leave the machine unplugged for about 10 seconds, plug back in, then see if forcedeth works.

I can confirm this. Funnily enough I also had the same problem on a mini-itx board I am evaluating for work which has a realtek chip - booting to windows or linux is fine, but booting to the latter after a soft reset makes the network card not work.

[netllama]

Which version of forcedeth is everyone using?

Thanks,
Lonni

[kenyee]

I'm using forcedeth 0.49 according to my boot logs.
I keep my system pretty up-to-date w/ Debian sid (though I've held off recently because Xorg 7.0 was just uploaded to it this weekend and I want to give other packages time to catch up :-)