Ryan, the ethernet port is on the motherboard. The MAC stays 00:...:00 even with a live CD. It's a known problem with "certain broken motherboards" as discussed in the thread I linked to.
I'm guessing that the MAC address was stored in the CMOS, and when the battery went dead, the MAC address was erased. But that's just a guess. After I reseated the power connector, I haven't seen any random failures, just the zero MAC. I can set it using "ifconfig eth0 hwaddr 11:22:33:44:55:66", and then the interface works fine, but after a reboot it's back to 00:00:00:00:00:00. I would like to find a way to set it permanently. On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 8:43 AM, Ryan Olds <[email protected]> wrote: > "once in a while it will make it into the X desktop for a few > minutes". Meaning that it crashes, or reboots? Is this still happening? > Is it always "00:00:00:00:00:00"? That OS could be enforcing a mac address. > Use a boot cd and see if the address is still "00:00:00:00:00:00". If it is > then the card probably needs replaced. Baring an odd power problem the > mother shouldn't wreak havoc with the card. > On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 7:59 AM, Bob Miller <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Thanks for all the advice. In fact, the power cable was loose at the >> motherboard. I also replaced the CMOS battery, and it's stopped >> complaining about invalid BIOS settings. >> >> But the original problem remains. The Ethernet interface comes >> up with a MAC address of 00:00:00:00:00:00. Anyone know how >> to persistently set it to its correct value? >> >> It is a SysKonnect SK-9871 V2.0, and it uses the skge driver. >> Here's the error message and discussion. >> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg30764.html >> >> On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 6:07 AM, Kaplan <[email protected]> wrote: >> > Tighten board to chassis screws. Reset bios if an outboard video card is >> > plugged in; often settings will have >> > reverted to default if BIOS battery is discharged. >> > >> > I have one that restarts itself periodically due to a flaky video card >> > (I assume is software as it transcends OS). >> > >> > --kaplan >> > >> > On 1/5/2011 9:20 PM, Bob Miller wrote: >> >> I have a PC that has become flaky. I built it in Spring, 2003. >> >> (Pentium 4 at 2.4 GHz, i865 >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ >> > EUGLUG mailing list >> > [email protected] >> > http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug >> > >> >> >> >> -- >> Bob Miller K<bob> >> [email protected] >> _______________________________________________ >> EUGLUG mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug > > > _______________________________________________ > EUGLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug > > -- Bob Miller K<bob> [email protected] _______________________________________________ EUGLUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
