Ubuntu destroyed my Network Card - RTL8111

Hi..

I just wanted to let people know that Ubuntu 10.04/9.10 64-bit can you destroy your network card..

That's at least my conclusion, and by all means, I hope Im wrong..

Ive got a Asus P7P55D motherboard with i5 CPU, 2x2gig rams, 2x9500GT gfx cards.. and this motherboard has the NIC RTL8111/8186B network adapter..

I started out with Windows 7 a couple of days ago, it worked like a breeze, but it was too slow for my taste..

So I decided to install Ubuntu..

I installed Ubuntu 10.04, and had huge troubles with my network card being given WRONG driver by the OS..

after a total of 12 hours of searching, I discovered 6-7 potential solutions to my problem.. and being as this was a software problem, i never took to consider that I might have to be very carefull so my hardware wouldnt be destroyed..

Anyways,

after trying 10.04 a while, I resulted in trying 9.10.. but still, the same problem..

so I followed some guides etc.. and tried different things, but nothing..

I tried directly hooking my ADSL modem to my computer (and thereby skipping DIR-615 Dlink router) incase my router was the issue, but still nothing..

I reacted to the lights the NIC was giving..

Orange.. steady.. but slow..

I had never seen that before, and my experience with electronics made me look at this as a warning sign.. or perhaps a "too-late"-sign :P

I didnt know..

So i installed Windows Xp again, still same problem..

I installed Windows 7, still same problem..

And I wanna let you guys know, that for not 14 hours ago, I was playing Star Trek Onlin, and surfing the web, with Windows 7.. without any troubles..

I have checked the drivers, the bios settings, even updated the bios, and updated the drivers.. but still.. nothing..

I recall Ubuntu showing alot of weird addresses from the Network card.. like IP address being 192.234.0.231 and gateway being 253.0.3.123 etc.. really weird stuff.. I just thought it was a software malfunction. like a wrong driver.. but I guess I was wrong..

I hope, by all means I am wrong here, but I doubt it..

If you have experienced similar situations, and found a solution for it, I would be forever thankfull :)

Guess I have to go pick up a PCI-ethernet card...

NOW I could wish I never gave away the 30 PCI-ethernet cards i had lying around 3 weeks ago :P

=(

That a driver destroyed your network card is highly unlikely.

It's way more probable that your card was gradually failing and it just happened while you did your Ubuntu tests.

There's one simple thing you can try (if you haven't already) - if your computer isn't a laptop.

Open the case, pull out the network card (touch grounded metal to make sure you're not statically (sp?) charged before you do that), then put it in again.

I remember a couple times where that made a difference because the card didn't sit right or a contact was oxydized (sp?).

It's an onboard card as he said in the OP.

Make sure that when you re-installed XP/7 you correctly installed the proper drivers.

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Originally Posted by Sophont

That a driver destroyed your network card is highly unlikely.

It's way more probable that your card was gradually failing and it just happened while you did your Ubuntu tests.

There's one simple thing you can try (if you haven't already) - if your computer isn't a laptop.

Open the case, pull out the network card (touch grounded metal to make sure you're not statically (sp?) charged before you do that), then put it in again.

I remember a couple times where that made a difference because the card didn't sit right or a contact was oxydized (sp?).

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Its onboard..

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Originally Posted by Muzer

It's an onboard card as he said in the OP.

Make sure that when you re-installed XP/7 you correctly installed the proper drivers.

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I have.. Windows 7 has native drivers that works fine with this.. as I experienced from before installing Ubuntu..

It worked 100% fine for 3 months (since I bought this PC and put it together) with Windows XP, I have also though tried to install Asus' official drivers, but no luck..

This network card has NEVER had any problems before, so it couldnt have been gradually failing..

And Ive never heard of completely new NIC's just failing one day when you suddenly wanted to format and install a new OS.. :P

By all means, I hope Im wrong, and theres a better explanation to what happened here, but I doubt it =/

I had a similar experience recently while trying to install PCBSD on a partition. I downloaded, verified md5sum and began the install process. It popped the screens and seemed to install ok for about 5 seconds, then the entire laptop froze. No flashing, no movement of anything. I though....darn, a glitch. So I had to hard restart and realized I had fried the BIOS. It's a laptop and it would not even boot to the BIOS screen. I replaced the BIOS battery thinking it was a few years old...same result. I took every step I could find to bypass the BIOS and get up and running (pages of help ideas from various online sites and forums) but nothing would boot past the bios and recognize the CDROM, USB or anything. Black screen was best I could do (not a blank/off screen...it was showing black color, not just empty of color).

It was either a really odd time to fail so hard or something in the install process of PCBSD interfaced with the BIOS and rendered it inoperable. I wanted to try and flash the BIOS to update/reset it, but couldn't get anywhere with the level of failure I encountered. I have installed over 30 distros on the same machine, have kept the fan clear and dust free, make sure to keep the laptop cool, etc. It just died right there in front of me.

I can't say it was PCBSD because it never finished. Most likely it was hardware failure that happened at that moment for no other reason other than it was its time, but I sure won't be installing PCBSD on any machine I own just out of caution it could happen again if it's a fluke in the install.

well think of it like this maybe it has nothing to do with the OS you have maybe its just a faulty product i cant tell you how many times something like this has happened to me with internal hardware. replace it if that doesn't work then you have an extra network card.
i really dont think it was ubuntu. i have similar problems with windows and macs but non of my linux computers have had this problem

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Originally Posted by Pastortom

Its onboard..

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Sorry - overlooked that.

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Originally Posted by Pastortom

This network card has NEVER had any problems before, so it couldnt have been gradually failing..

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Sure it could. Stuff that breaks always works fine until it doesn't.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pastortom

And Ive never heard of completely new NIC's just failing one day when you suddenly wanted to format and install a new OS.. :P

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Certainly a creepy coincidence. But given a large number of installs over time it would happpen sooner or later. That looks meaningful from the point of view of the individual it happens to, but statistically it is expected given enough time.

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Originally Posted by Pastortom

By all means, I hope Im wrong, and theres a better explanation to what happened here, but I doubt it =/

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The simplest explanation is often the best.

On the one hand we have a coincidence. On the other hand we have software somehow killing a piece of hardware. The latter is not impossible. But I assume that the manufacturer did not design a fail feature that allows for a special code sequence that overheats and melts a weak line somewhere. And the driver would be designed to work to specs. That makes destroying your NIC a very very very unlikely event.
If a recent kernel had an unfortunate driver that is capable of killing certain NICs we would probably get a lot of angry postings here.

Hardware does fail suddenly in a small percentage of cases. RAID Controller, several HDDs, a NIC or 2, motherboards, etc... - during the last 20 years I've seen them all fail. Worked perfect one day - gone the next.

Many years ago a not so old computer of mine suddenly did not turn on. Everything was fine before. One morning I switch it on - nothing.
Turns out the stupid floppy drive I hadn't even used in a while decided to go out with a bang and shorted the power pack.

All things considered coincidence is the most likely explanation by far.

I have the exact same board and the same thing happen to me. Had my computer for over a year. Installed Ubuntu plenty of times on other machines, just not on this one and not from Windows. Network card is dead.

I have the same problem, exactly the same symptoms. My mobo is p7p55d-e dulexe. Your network card is NOT dead!!

Simple power down you computer, and unplug every power sources, then wait for a couple of minutes, and start your computer again. The card will be alive again!

Try it and report back.

I had the same problem.

My motherboard is a "Gigabyte 790XTA-UD4" with the same onboard network hardware as in the forum title. Network working fine in both Windows 7 and Kubuntu 9.10. I installed Kubuntu 10.04 overtop of Kubuntu 9.10 and the wired network wouldn't work. ALSO I couldn't connect to it with my wireless, which is a TPLINK wireless card of some sorts. I restarted back into Windows 7 to see if I could find some answers to my problems and BOTH the wired AND wireless hardware refused to work in Windows 7 as well.

I was beginning to panic, but as the guy said above, once I turned my computer off and unplugged everything from the wall for about 3 minutes and turned back on, the wired network is working again. I haven't tested the wireless yet.