Topic: Dual Nic motherboards - second nic doesnt work

[timb]

Yesterday I installed a server using an EPOX 8RD3+ motherboard that has dual rt8139 nics onboard.

eth0 was used for internal network
eth1 was to be used for ADSL access to world

Everything appear to be working fine right up until I attempted to ping the ADSL modem. Nothing. eth1 was not up and attempting to bring it up resulted in error messages of the missing hardware kind.

Checks of ifcfg-eth1 showed a correctly filled out configuration.

I had thrown in a spare nic which I duely installed. Alas it was a 8139 based card as well. Now this box had 3 8139 nics in it. This nic then became eth0 and the onboard nics were not accessable.

I a stroke of genius under pressure - I remembered the old server had a smc nic in it. This was installed in place of the previous nic and then eth0 appeared on the motherboard and the smc nic became eth1. Everything works fine.

I know these dual on board nics seems to have a problem with RedHat Enterprise and Centos. Does anyone know a fix?

I have witnessed this behaviour on at least three EPOX m/b's

[hardijs]

what happens if you change your intended order say En0 for external and En1 for internal (there is some in the setup saying as far as I remember "swapped")

also some setting in bios may help
PnP Os should be on.
reset config.
see the integrated devices or whatever the name  and see if you can change the irq for one nic (or changing for both of them?)

the rtl nics usually work without a hickup....

Also see what is written in the dmessage and message logs (ie startup logs)