IBM300PL - Unable to obtain IP using DHCP (solved)

[Darkbee]

I am completely stumped and I'm hoping someone here on the forums can help me. I have tried and tried to get my old IBM PL300 (model 6862-V6U) connected to cable Internet via a standard 4 port router but without success. I am trying to use the onboard ethernet, which the IBM/Lenovo support site claims is a 3com chipset, but Puppy, Damn Small Linux AND BartPE (winXP) all claim different. In fact they all concur that it is an Intel chipset (Does Intel own or buy-out 3Com?). Incidentally, I believe that DSL tried to use the same driver, but I couldn't connect with that either (under Kernal 2.4.??). I couldn't get BartPE to work either.

Puppy detects the card as "Intel Corporation 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100]" (which I obtained from PupScan) , and suggests using eepro100 driver. The ethernet device is visable in the network wizard (as device ETH0) and the test confirms that "Puppy was able to find an alive network". However, I cannot auto assign an IP, nor manually assign one. The process just runs for about 60 seconds or so, as it suggests it might, then returns as unsuccessful.

I know that the ethernet device is working (or at least was working) because a friend of mine had the IBM computer connected to the network only a week or so ago (he was running Windoze XP). The router isn't the problem either because I'm posting this message from a Dell computer running Puppy Live, hooked up to the router in question.

I've read on the forums that many people have had problems with various IBM products, either with Ethernet/Wireless devices or Crystal Audio sound cards. Am I just SOL, or is it possible to get this thing working? I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do, could somebody please suggest what course of action to try next?

I am using Puppy 2.12 release, with a full HD install. My system should be more than fast enough to run Puppy (500Mhz, 196MB RAM). I did a full HD install because I wanted to play with Puppy.

Sorry for the long post, I've tried to include as much detail as I can in the hope that someone can help me. Puppy will be perfect for this old machine but the whole thing is useless to me without Internet access. Sound, I can live without, for now at least, but the Internet is vital.

[SnowDog]

Hi Darkbee.
Sounds like fun. I've had similar experiences though not with the exact same hardware setup you are using.
Couple of questions for you re this:
Are you using the same ethernet cable to try the ibm as you did for the dell?
How long is the cable? (as in, how far away from the router?)
Did you try pluggig the cable into different router ports?
Did you reboot and try again?
Can you boot the live puppy CD on the same hardware and try the network wizard?
Is there a bios setting on the ibm that has anything to do with the onboard lan?

[Darkbee]

Hi Darkbee.
Sounds like fun. I've had similar experiences though not with the exact same hardware setup you are using.
Couple of questions for you re this:

I appreciate your input and swift response. Thanks!

Are you using the same ethernet cable to try the ibm as you did for the dell?

I've tried several "known to be working" cables including ones that have worked for the Dell. I even borrowed a friends cable, who had his laptop hooked up to the same router (and a working Internet connection).

How long is the cable? (as in, how far away from the router?)

Well the cables have been of various lengths but I would guestimate that the maximum cable length used is about 6ft.

Did you try plugging the cable into different router ports?

I could try this, perhaps swap the Dell and IBM ports, so that I can verify the port is working.

Did you reboot and try again?

I've rebooted so many times I've lost count! Along these lines though, I'm a little confused about how the drivers work: I can load multiple drivers, using the network wizard, at any given time but how do I ensure that Puppy is using a specific driver for the particular ethernet adaptor? I'm assuming that it's not smart enough to dynamically switch drivers on-the-fly, until it finds a loaded one that works best? What is the procedure to unload a driver correctly? For example, suppose that the suggested driver (eepro100) is wrong, how would I go about unloading it? What I've been doing so far is to select it again from the load driver list, then Puppy tells me that it's already loaded and gives me the option to unload it. Then I can proceed to load another driver in the usual manner and I assume that Puppy will start using this new driver. I've sort of seen this in action since loading some drivers will not acknowledge the presence of the ethernet and some will. Incidentally, Puppy always seems to default back to the eepro100 driver upon reboot, regardless of what I choose (although if I have multiple drivers loaded and saved I think those do load again upon reboot too).

Can you boot the live puppy CD on the same hardware and try the network wizard?

I think I've tried this but perhaps not, I'll try again just to be sure.

Is there a bios setting on the ibm that has anything to do with the onboard lan?

I know for a fact that there is a setting to enable the onboard LAN (I've tried disabling it, rebooting Puppy, quit Puppy, re-enabling it, and then reboot Puppy again, without any change). I also know there is a setting to enable network booting, beyond that I'd have to look. Is there anything in particular that I should be looking for, or just LAN related settings in general? This does remind me that I did update the BIOS recently, but I was assuming that this would not impact the onboard hardware, or more specifically I assume that an OS retrieves hardware identifier information directly from each piece of hardware rather than from the BIOS, is this thinking correct? If not, then perhaps the BIOS update was not appropriate for my machine and that it why Puppy thinks I have an Intel ethernet rather than 3com. I'm thinking this is highly unlikely but possible... I'm not an expert though. Other onboard hardware works and is reported correctly in Puppy, such as the onboard S3 Trio graphics chipset.

Once again, I appreciate any help that you can offer. I'll try a few more things and report back. Oh, and for the record, ironically my sound seems to be working (I used the Puppy sound wizard). It doesn't seem particularly high quality but it is working, which is something. I'd rather have the Internet though!

[darkerror05]

The epro100 (the driver for ethernet pro 100) does NOT support DHCP. So you will need to manualy define a IP(best if out of your routers DHCP IP range). This did not work for me but it SHOULD work for you. Check your router's box, documentation or config(be it a web based, telnet or other method) for your DHCP IP range and static IP support. Hope this helps.

ps so far I have not found a driver for my ethernet pro that supports dhcp.

[SnowDog]

Hey Darkbee,
Looks like you found an expert on this problem, so I'll politely step aside...

Thanks darkerror05, you likely saved alot of people (well, ones who search the forum at least) a whole bunch of trouble with this particular hardware.

[Darkbee]

That would certainly explain a lot!!! Like, why it works on Windows, why it doesn't work with DSL (I haven't tried any other distros) and why static IP'ing appears to work (Puppy tells me that I have been successful in configuring the adaptor manually even though I still have no Internet connection). Sadly for me, static IP'ing is not really an option since I don't have documentation or access to the router to configure it. Hopefully, I'm gonna get my hands on another regular PCI card tomorrow (I'm told it's a 3com), so hopefully that has DHCP support.

Thank you gentlemen (or ladies, as the case may be) for your swift responses and help, you have saved me a lot of wasted time and effort.

[SnowDog]

maybe if you post the router specs, someone will have the docs or info re: how to config it via web browser?

If your grabbing a pci card it won't matter much anyway, but if there is info available, it might help someone else, maybe even you later on.

Cheers

[Darkbee]

It's a Time Warner Cable router, which I'm not permitted to mess with, more's the pity, so even if it has a web interface, I wouldn't be granted access to it. Thanks for the persistance though.

Naturally, it would be nice if I could use the onboard LAN rather than have to install a whole new card but, I'd be happy with any Internet access at this point in time, especially given all of the effort I've put in, into getting a card to work that will never work with the drivers I have.

It did occur to me that I could try using a Windows driver and the ndis wrapper but then I'm stumped on what Windows version driver to use i.e. should I use Win95, NT, does it even matter? Also, I have concerns (well founded or not) about performance issues and how well this works. Are there any possible downsides to this methods or is it simply a case of it either works or it doesn't? I've read that some people have had great success getting Windows drivers to work using this methods.

I found some (potentially) useful links on the Intel website for Linux, but I'm not really sure they help. I certainly don't have the expertise required, if it is necessary to recompile the kernel with new drivers and God knows what else. I'm not even sure if the drivers from the Intel website are new (compared to the existing eepro100 driver).

This is the most recent driver that I could find on the Intel website that should work with my adaptor and with kernal 2.6.x (although as previously stated, this may well be the same or similar driver that is already shipped with Puppy):
Linux* 10/100 Adapter Base Driver [e100-3.5.14.tar.gz]

This chart helps you to identify what driver you need and provides a link to the latest drivers for the specified hardware:
Intel® PRO/100, PRO/1000 & PRO/10GbE Network Adapter ID & Driver Guide

Lastly, I'm told that the new card that I will acquire is a 3com card which should run off of the 3c59x driver. Am I wasting my time with this too, or does anyone know for sure that this driver supports DHCP?

Once again, many thanks for the assistance and support.

[SnowDog]

NDISwrapper is out of my league I fear. I have only used it once on a Linksys wireless card and that was only good until I rebooted (sorry).

As for the 3Com card. I have used a pile of them and never had a problem, from older 10BT to 10/100, various model numbers, all good.

I guess that doesn't absolutely guarantee that you might not find one that I have never tried and doesn't work...
Maybe put the card model in a reply and me or someone else can tell you if it works for sure.

[Darkbee]

Noooooooo!

I can't get the 3com card to work either, the card says its a 3C905C-TXM

[zode]

Greetings. I am running Puppy 2.12 on an IBM Thinkpad A31 that has an onboard network adapter that is detected as the Intel eepro100. I had problems acquiring an address via DHCP also, although these problems did not happen with Puppy 2.02 and earlier on this machine.

Suggestion:

Boot Windows on a machine attached to your network.
Open a DOS prompt.
Type "ipconfig /all" at the command line (no quotes)
Note the following, and write down the addresses.
- IP address (probably 192.168.1.x)
- Default Gateway (probably 192.168.1.1)
- DNS (probably two addresses such as 65.32.x.x)

Boot Puppy.
Use the network wizard and tell it to use static IP.
Use the addresses you gathered above in the static IP fields.
For the DNS, just choose the first one that you wrote down.
It should then work.

[Darkbee]

The only problem is that I don't know the range of IP addresses for the router... I'm using a university campus Internet.

IP's are of the form 72.230.xx.xx, now I could try and guess but I might hit an IP that's already in use. Actually, IP's don't seem to be assigned on a per router basis.

Plus, on my home router, I usually have to specify to the router that I want to use a static IP for a certain computer (I think by specifying the Mac address of the adaptor). I normally just use DHCP for home use, it's easier if I change computers/adaptors etc.

I had problems acquiring an address via DHCP also, although these problems did not happen with Puppy 2.02 and earlier on this machine.

Is it possible that something has been broken in the later versions?

Well I just checked my Dell and it has a 3com 3C920 (which is says is compatible with 3C905C-TX .... no "M")and THAT works with Puppy Live 2.12. Maybe something is wrong with my IBM then? Perhaps something in the BIOS, I need to play with. Is it possible that my IBM is just stuck in a certain configuration so that no matter what network card I use, DHCP is not going to work? This is getting crazy... what I really need is a known to work card to test in the computer, then I can confirm that something is wrong. Maybe I'll try this new 3com PCI card in the Dell.[/quote]

[zode]

Did you say you could boot the IBM with Windows? If so, that's why I suggested running ipconfig /all command there, so that you could see what IP address, gateway, DNS are used for that connection.

Now, if you boot the same machine with Puppy a few minutes later, and set up a static address using the same IP address that was just assigned for the IBM box, it should work. At least you could test it out. You won't be interfering with another user's IP address, because you'd be using the address just assigned to you.

Kinda funny, I now note that I CAN get a DHCP address on my Puppy 2.12 hard drive installation using the eepro100 card, after having to set it up as static initially. Perhaps the same will work for you...first get it to work via static, then try switching to DHCP.

[Darkbee]

Kinda funny, I now note that I CAN get a DHCP address on my Puppy 2.12 hard drive installation using the eepro100 card, after having to set it up as static initially. Perhaps the same will work for you...first get it to work via static, then try switching to DHCP.

But do you have to set it to a static IP every time you boot THEN change to DHCP? Also, this seems to be in direct contradiction to what darkerror05 was saying in that it simply isn't possible with the current eepro100 driver.

Unfortunately, I don't have Windows on the IBM, since I only have a 1.6GB HD in it (which is completely devoted to Puppy: 1 ext2 partition, 1 swap partition).

[zode]

No, since I started looking at your thread here, even though I intially had trouble getting a DHCP address and tried configuring with static, I went and ran the Network Wizard and told it to use DHCP; it did not complain, and I have an IP address. It asked if I wanted to use that upon next boot, and I said Yes, and subsequent boots have given me an address. Yes, this conflicts with what darkerror05 reported. Perhaps it has something to do with mine being a full hard drive installation

I am on a home network. My DHCP server is a Linksys BEFSR41. I have it configured for maximum DHCP lease time (34463 minutes).
I have Windows XP/Puppy 2.12/Kanotix 2005-04/LiMP_dhcp installed to hard disk on a Thinkpad A31 booting with GRUB installed (by Puppy) to the MBR, and all of these get addresses via DHCP.

I should probably bow out at this point...I only jumped in because my Puppy installation uses the same eepro100 driver, but my hardware is certainly not the same as yours.

I also noted that you said DSL did not get you on the network either. I was going to suggest trying:
- DSL 3.1
- Kanotix 2005-04
- Mepis 6.0
- PCLinuxOS
- Knoppix
on your hardware and see if any of them work using DHCP. Then maybe it could be determined whether your LAN card has a hope of working.
All of these distros worked on my hardware without issue using DHCP.

[Flash]

Darkbee, take the network card out of the Dell and see if it works in the IBM. That will tell you if it's the card or the computer somhow.

[WhoDo]

BTW, I have several IBM 300PL machines here, and almost without exception the ethernet chip is a Crystal LAN CS8290A.

Furthermore, I haven't been able to find a driver in Puppy that works with that chip, although I must admit that I haven't tried the latest Puppy 2.12zdrv version.

3-Com cards seem to work without fail, and without disabling the onboard ethernet.

Don't know if that helps, but at least now you know for sure.

Cheers

[SnowDog]

darkbee, are you selecting the right card now?
ie: you now have Eth0, and Eth1, right?
You might (not sure, but maybe) need to disable the onboard one in bios.
Do you have, or can you get an older version of Puppy to try on that box?

[Darkbee]

Darkbee, take the network card out of the Dell and see if it works in the IBM. That will tell you if it's the card or the computer somhow.

I'd love to, but of course life could never be that simple... 1. The adapter on the Dell is onboard and 2. The Dell is low profile.

Otherwise I would have taken the new 3com card I have and try that in the Dell. From all that I've tried, I am coming to the conclusion that the problem lies with IBM either software or hardware (or both ). I'm 99.9% confident that the problem is not the router or cables. Or maybe its just a case of PEBKAC.

Anyway, I tried as zode suggested, booted up the Dell and took note of all the relevant dot notation, then shut that down, booted up the IBM and manually configured the network settings. By my standards, I had relative success because the browser did not complain immediately that it couldn't find any given website. It actually seemed to time out, which at least tells me that it's trying to do something. Is there any way that I can view logs of IP traffic, perhaps if I can see the conversation between the router and the network adapter, I can see if they are at least talking. (even if they are having a strong disagreement that is something!)

I'm half tempted just to blow everything away and start again, but I'm not convinced that I wouldn't have the same problems (and thus again waste more of my time).

I agree with your thinking though Flash, I need to find an adapter that I know works with say a live Puppy, then try it out in the IBM. If WhoDo is right and 3com cards almost always work without fail, then it'd be nice if I could find a PC to test the one I have out in, I'm fairly sure it works but I want to be absolutely certain. I'll be sure to post any new findings I have here.

@WhoDo, what do the "Crystal LAN CS8290A" get detected as by Puppy? The thought has to occured to me on more than one occasion, that Puppy is detecting the card incorrectly but then, if that is true, the so are DSL and BartPE (WinPE XP). From what I can tell of the IBM support site there are many different flavors of the 300PL model. I've tried to get hold of documentation on all the onboard peripherals for my exact model but sometimes it can be pretty vague, I suppose because even among same model types, parts change for one reason or another.

As as per usual, I really am very grateful to all responses and moral/technical support.

[Darkbee]

@SnowDog: I just saw your post and funnily enough after earlier comments I was rooting around for Puppy2.02 to try it out. I didn't have any success earlier but was pushed for time. After looking again I found that Bill St. Clair mirror has the 2.02 iso for download, so I might give that a try and see what happens.

BTW, have tried all combinations of disabling onboard ethernet, disabling PCI Bus ethernet, I've even taken to disabling serial and parallel ports just in case. I'm wondering if IRQ's come into play and if the ethernet adapter is expected to be on a particular IRQ (I don't even really know if this is an issue or not, I'm clutching at straws at this point in time). I also mention it because I am familiar with some (old) SCSI devices that expected to have a certain SCSI ID otherwise they wouldn't work properly. I was just wondering if there is some sort of resource conflict, with the onboard adapter not having the required or expected resources.

General question to all: if I use the command line at Puppy boot time which goes something like pfix: toram (I'm doing this from poor memory), does that ensure that the live Puppy doesn't take anything off of the HD? Do I even need to do this, if I boot from a CD? I'm assuming that if Live Puppy finds a puppy_3fs file, on a local HD it will try to use it, which I guess I don't really want if I'm trying to do a nice clean boot.