[vox-tech] Dead ethernet on Thinkpad T20

[Bill Kendrick <nMAPSbs@sonic.net>]

Okay, I'm beginning to think the built-in ethernet NIC on this Thinkpad T20
is dying... but, I'm not a very sophisticated debugger, so hopefully not.

We're running Debian Testing.  Recently, I did an apt-get upgrade, and
it installed an updated Kernel 2.4.27 package.  At that point, ethernet
seemed to stop working.  I decided to take the plunge and try 2.6,
after Googling and finding some reports of problems with the 3c59x module
under 2.4.  (It's not my laptop, too, so I was in a hurry. :^) )

Today, however, the network seems dead again.  (I think we got a whole 1 day
use out of it after upgrading to 2.6. :^) )

Also, I noticed that neither LED is lighting up on the ethernet jack
on the back of the laptop.  (I'm not certain whether they would if
there's no driver 'activating' the NIC.  If a light should be on -- regardless
of software -- when plugged into a live network I guess maybe the NIC is,
in fact, dead... <:^( )

Where do I start to debug this?  Or should I give up and call the NIC dead?
(It gets tugged on every now and then, which is never a good thing, but kinda
hard to avoid, I guess. :^/ )  In the meantime, we have both wired and
wireless PCMCIA cards that'll do, but the built-in is obviously preferable.

I tried booting a Knoppix disc, but unfortunately the only one I have
seems to be defective. (Read errors, then a nice kernel panic. :^( What luck!)


Thanks. Sorry if this is less than coherent. It's pretty late, as you can
see. :^)

-bill!
bill@newbreedsoftware.com                               Have I been helpful?
http://newbreedsoftware.com/    http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=billkendrick
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