NIC card problems

[Michael Kearey]

On Mon, 2005-06-20 at 14:01 -0400, Bill Tangren wrote:
> Michael Kearey wrote:
> > On Wed, 2005-06-15 at 10:35 -0400, Bill Tangren wrote:
> > 
> >>I just purchased a Dell PowerEdge 2800 and installed Linux on it. I have 
> >>installed Linux on several boxes and had few problems, but I definitely 
> >>have a problem this time.
> > 
> > 
> > There are several flavours and versions of 'Linux' around. Since you
> > posted in redhat-list, it is safe to assume that it's Red Hat OS. But
> > what version, and what release:
> > 
> > cat /etc/redhat-release
> 
> RHEL ES4
> 
> > 
> > 
> > I don't know of any specific problem with the e1000 modules for RHEL 3
> > or 4, but it is very likely that a simple update of the system will
> > help.
> > 
> > 
> > So if you have RHEL3 or 4 and registered with RHN, :
> > 
> > up2date -u
> > up2date -u kernel kernel-utils --force
> 
> The network cards aren't working, so this won't work, as of yet. I am 
> considering putting the updates on a CD and updating that way.
> 

That's a problem alright. Probably best to download the ES4 update 1
CD's, and do an upgrade installation. Alternatively install a working
ethernet card if you have one.


> > 
> > If you have the SMP kernel, use 'kernel-smp' in the list of updates to
> > force.
> 
> This is interesting. I did this install on a new machine, and told it to 
> install everything. It installed both kernel-2.6.9-5.EL and 
> kernel-2.6.9-5.EL-SMP. I deleted the SMP kernel, as there is only one 
> cpu. Don't know why the install did that. I've never seen it do that 
> before on any other machine.

The most likely explanation for this is that you have a HyperThreading
CPU. It appears as 2 CPU's when you use the smp kernel.

Cheers,
Michael