On Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 07:41:22AM -0400, Don Berkich wrote: | Hi Folks, | | I've got a Sid box (kernel 2.4.8) with two Linksys Etherfast v.2 NICs | which have worked flawlessly for several years now (confirmed by | tulip-diag). I recently got a SB4100 cablemodem and had ATT install a | line. | | My problem is that I'm having to reset (ifdown/ifup) the interface | *often*, like every two or three minutes, which makes broadband nearly | useless. (Some days are better, but lately it's gotten very bad. | Indeed, dhclient sometimes fails to negotiate a lease after sending out | a ping and getting 100% packet loss).
Sometimes with my DSL connection I need to cycle the interface for no apparent reason. I have had comments from others that my current ISP (which is actually a different company than the DSL link) is really poor quality. After my free trial period I am likely to switch providers. | iptraf reports that eth1 sends an arp request to the ATT router and | fails to get a reply. It tries a second time, then just sits there | broadcasting the arp request. Bah! syslog reports "receive_packet failed | on eth1: network is down", but after I bring eth1 down, which may or | may-not tell me anything. | | The cablemodem, however, does not appear to lose sync: receive, send, | and online lights are steady-on. | | How do I isolate the problem? That is, how do I determine if it's the | Linksys NIC, the Linksys NIC/cablemodem connection, a weak upstream | cablemodem signal, a weak downstream signal -- the tech had to install a | new line to make up for signal loss due to excessive splitting elsewhere | in the house, but he left apparently satisfied that there was enough | signal on the new line -- or something altogether else which I haven't | considered but you folks might catch? Do you have access to another machine somewhere? I would suggest connecting those via ethernet which would verify that the NIC is working. I've never had any problems with my LinkSys NICs yet. The cablemodem should be just a bridge and should pass packets between the rj-45 and the bnc connectors transparently. It sounds like your provider is having trouble communicating with your system. HTH, -D
