[expert] dual 3c509 NICs fail on re-boot

[Greg Gray]

This has really got me stumped and frustrated.  I am running LM 7.0.2 on an Intel P133, 64 megs, 2.3 GB in HDDs, Trident 96xx video, SVGA monitor, SB16 sound card, and a pair of 3Com Etherlink III ISA NICs.  Performing a clean new install, including formatting the HDDs, I have no problems setting up the networking so that eth0 has connectivity to the net through a cable modem, and eth1 has connectivity to my internal network.  Everything works great, including forwarding and masquerading!  Eth0 is set to i/o 300, IRQ 10, eth1 is set to i/o 280, IRQ 11.  This was done with the 3Com DOS utility.  PnP was disabled at the same time.  All IRQs are set to legacy in the BIOS, and PnP support is disabled.   At some point in time, upon re-booting, both NICs will fail.  They work just fine through a network restart.  The only way that I have been able to recover is with a complete re-install.  Restarting the network doesn't correct the problem.  Ifup doesn't work.  Ifconfig shows only my lo interface.    This is the third go around with this problem.  It also happened with 6.something (the obvious answer here is that I have a hardware problem, but the only hardware common to this time and the 6.something failure is the Mobo, CPU, and case).  Any suggestions would be appreciated.   Greg