Topic: Realtek Network card issue resolved

[Jan]

Hi,

I thought I might add my recent experience with getting two identical realtek cards to work in a SME gateway setup. In short.... it didn't. I read some earlier discussions on this but none seemed toe really confirm that it didn't work. lots of tweaking and commandline stuff .... me very lazy so I didn't bother with that because I felt it should just work without all that trouble.

So I exchanged one realtek card with the 3com card I had in my client PC and voila it works perfectly, no problem! Took me close to 6 months to actually get myself to do this .... I was very fond of my 3com..... but... its in a better place now serving a greater good..

Anyway, my advice is to try two different brand cards and make sure they use a different chipset and therefore driver. For me it worked very well hope this helps some of you.

regards,

Jan

[Jon Blakely]

Jan,

I have set up quite a few servers with identical realtek NICs and never had a problem.
While your advice may be well meant and resolved a problem you had I dont believe it is a general problem.

Jon

[Jan]

Jon,

Ok... that explains why I couldn't find any real usefull info on it, this isn't really an issue? Hmm ... Well maybe my advice is for those where ALL else failed.

Strange thing is that I used several (5 in total)  identical realtek networkcards next to the one that always seemed to work. I also tried different combinations on the availeble PCI slots. All failed. Maybe the server hardware itself has become a desaster zone or something.

Anyway, I'm sure you are right that this problem of mine is rare and that its just me and my old buggy hardware. Other than that, I've never had ANY serious problem with SME for over 2,5 years now.  

with kind regards,

Jan

[Michiel]

> you had I dont believe it is a general problem.

Oh yes it is, and not only for SME/RedHat :-/
http://www.redhat.com/archives/redhat-list/2001-February/msg00478.html
http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-linux-e/2003-Jan/0319.html

Anyway, I find it much easier to have different NICs as it will help you to stick the right cable in the right card

[Kelvin]

Hi There,

> it will help you to stick the right cable in the right card
Agreed.

However, like Jon, I've set up many, many servers with identical Realtek cards with no problems. As for picking the right card to plug into (aside from the 50/50 chance ), generally, PCI cards are detected starting from the one closest to the AGP slot (if you M/B does not have an AGP slot pretend there's one where it should be !). Therefore, generally, the first one detected as eth0 is the one closest to the AGP slot. This formula has so far never failed me (does not mean you won't find some wonderful M/B out there that does not follow !

Kelvin

[krusty]

I to have a couple of servers running both realtek nic's and intel pro's paired up the same and had no problems. My opinion would be a irq conflict or something of the sort. Did you try the cards in different pci slots?

[Jan]

Krusty,

Yes i did. unfortunately no luck there but as i mentioned the solution for me was to use different brands of chips in each nic and that did the trick. i also tried different cards of the same brand, no succes there.

I do not really think this is a big issue though. Jon and some others already explained they had no probs so maybe it was just dumm luck and my mboard is kinda freaky.  

I'm just happy it works and as I said if ALL else fails, and yes sometimes that does happen,  why not try this option. Worked for me

regards,

Jan