Ubuntu destroyed my Network Card - RTL8111

[wnelson]

Did you do the following when compiling the r8168 drivers.

make clean; make; make install; depmod

Walt

[cacycleworks]

I either did sudo ./autorun.sh OR I read the download's INSTALL file (if there is one) and did that. I'm thinking I did exactly like the guy I quoted did.

[Birdman2010]

I followed the instructions that I quoted below several times, but the steps corrupted my persistent file. I am running Linux Mint off a USB drive. The instructions below, though, did help point me in the right direction. It turns out that I simply have to "blacklist" the 8169 driver!

So, here are the steps that I followed. They seem to work even after rebooting my machine.


Google "Realtek" and download the Ethernet driver directly from the Realtek website.
Click Menu | Places | Downloads and right-click on the Realtek driver and select "Extract Here"
Open a terminal window and use these commands. The commands are case sensitive. "cd downloads" will NOT work:
cd Downloads
cd r8168-8.028.00 [Edit: the folder name will change with new versions. Type dir and hit enter to see available folders]
chmod +x autorun.sh [Edit: this makes the script executable]
sudo ./autorun.sh [Edit: this executes the script as root

Now, here are more critical steps. You have to "blacklist" the 8169 or it will be reloaded on your next bootup and KILL your Internet connection! (conflicting drivers)

In the terminal window, type this command:
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

When you hit Enter, a editor window will open the blacklist.conf file for you to edit. Go to the very bottom and add these two lines
# Blacklist Realtek RTL8111/8169 gigabit driver
blacklist r8169

Close the editor window. It will ask you if you want to save the changes, hit Save .

Once I did these steps, my Realtek ethernet connection ran perfectly. More importantly, I was able to reboot and the Internet still worked. The key is that I had to blacklist the defective driver (8169).

Yes!!!!! OMG thank you. I'm pretty experienced with Linux and this was totally vexing me.



This affects all linuxes... I spent 2 full days ripping my hair out over this. My story is unique and interesting. I bought a used motherboard+cpu+ram from overclock.net. Motherboard is Asus Maximus III Gene. I got it, installed Fedora 14 (specifically the Fusion remix) and all was well. 10.10's instability combined with Canonical's desire to dump Gnome have caused me to find a new distro. Fusion is awesome. It. Just. Works. And installs in about 1/3rd the time that Ubuntu does.

Then I work on my overclock and using a completely different hard drive, I install Windows Vista 32 bit to get all the HW monitoring tools and CPU-z sees my CPU at 4020MHz and doesn't report 2200MHz like linux does. (I hate it, so I always seem to have a license available) I get my overclock done then reinstall Fedora to dual boot with Vista. (Linux is my primary desktop)

No networking. But when I ran /etc/init.d/NetworkManager restart (Fedora's equivalent to Ubuntu's /etc/init.d/networking restart) it would come up. I tried putting it in /etc/rc.local, which did not work in either Linux. I went into the BIOS thinking that I broke something switching from IDE to ACHI mode. I tried acpi=off. I reinstalled a few times. I tried Cent-OS 5.5. I reran the CAT6 wiring. I tried a PCI ethernet adapter. Always the same. It would come up but I'd have to manually kick the networking after a boot-up. I automount remote directories, so I wasn't having it...

So I said screw it, I know Ubuntu so well, I can hack through anything. Plus, I was hoping that Ubuntu's VAST community would have found a solution. I found this page in my 2nd hour running ubuntu. Just for that, I'll probably hang out in Ubuntu-land for a while on this Desktop. I've got 10.04 LTS, so I'm hoping updates won't break this computer the way that 10.10 updates have broken others in my workplace. (They all get Fedora Fusion when that happens)

I say to everyone that the behaviors reported in this thread makes absolute sense from an embedded software / hardware standpoint. I did that professionally and have had the same situations happen to us. The "normal" way people code is to try as little as possible when programming a chip until it does what you want. And you ignore ALL other registers and settings. You know, all that stuff that shows up in lspci -vv and -vvv. More OCD/anal types will read the data sheet for the chip and decide which configuration for EACH and every setting is the best and program it that way. It's my professional opinion that the r8168 and r8169 are so similar as to be considered equivalent. Until someone who likes to be overly thorough (like me) comes in and sets EVERY register for a r8169 onto a r8168 and then it gets kinda mad.

Yaaay, awesome that this is the fix... Thanks!
Chris

[Bealer]

if you can see eth0 then you do not have the problem that is the subject of this thread

I do actually have the problem that this thread is talking about.

From the OP, I had everything working just like he did, and now get nothing, only an orange light from the adapter (indicating a slow connection). It doesn't work in Windows or Linux.

I installed R8168, but still no luck in actually getting it to fully function. I can see eth0 via ethtool but can't get it to respond. Even hard power off's don't work.

The nic is either dead or in a completely dormant state. This all happened when using 11.10. On 11.04 I had been fine, I recently upgraded (in the last 3 weeks) to 11.10 and that's when it happened.

[cacycleworks]

I'd suggest running 10.04 live CD and attempt installing the driver again. Maybe that will unstick the controller.

[Jan Greeff]

When I read these posts I thought that my problems were solved, but alas!

Both computers on my home network have accessed my HP 6313 all-in-one printer via the existing connections recently. A pattern that has established itself is that one seems to disconnect the other.

When computer no. 1 was running on Ubuntu 11.04 it could print, but only when no. 2 was powered off. Then, when I installed 12.04 on machine no. 1 it could no longer print or connect to the router, but no.2, running on Ubuntu 11.04 did manage to access the router and to print when no. 1 was powered off.

So previous to Ubuntu 12.04, no. 1 lost contact with the printer when no. 2 was running, now no. 2 loses contact when no. 1 is running.

The guys at launchpad are trying their best to help, but to no avail as yet. Hopefully this will help them get on track also.

Does anyone have any ideas about where I should go from here?

[cacycleworks]

I'm wondering if you need a new router... I've recently had lots of unexplained phenomena cured by new network hardware, which particularly annoys me... shouldn't that stuff always work?

[Skara Brae]

This thread reminds me of a PC that I once had with Windows (Millennium?) and Mandrake (9?) in dual boot.
After a Mandrake session, internet wouldn't work in Windows. That was years ago; in 2004.

[Jan Greeff]

Thanks, could be but it is a new router and the old one did the same...the only difference being that I could print eventually after reinstalling the printer a few times, until I upgraded to 12.04 - since then there is NO printing being done on this machine. I must add that the new router's manufacturer states that the software (which I obviously did not use) is not Linux compatible.