Ubuntu destroyed my Network Card - RTL8111

[elnur]

I have the same problem, exactly the same symptoms. My mobo is p7p55d-e dulexe. Your network card is NOT dead!!

Simple power down you computer, and unplug every power sources, then wait for a couple of minutes, and start your computer again. The card will be alive again!

Try it and report back.

Thank you very much! I started thinking really bad about Ubuntu, but my network card is back alive.

[peepingtom]

Something like this happens when bad microcode/firmware is loaded on a chip by a driver. When that chip loses power, this firmware is no longer present, and new firmware can be loaded. A reboot is not the same as a hard reboot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booting#Hard_reboot

You guys should post a bug report in Launchpad.

[yingwuzhao]

Now the problem has two aspects, one is in windows and the other is in linux.

For windows you want to roll back the network driver to the microsoft one, instead of using the one provided by Realtek, then turn on the feature "wake on lan" in device manage -> network card -> power management.

For linux, you want to install the tool "ethtool" and in the console do:
sudo ethtool -s eth0 wol g

to also turn on the feature "wake on lan". Then the problem should be solved. If it still doesn't work, then under linux do the following:
sudo ethtool -s eth0 wol d
then do again:
sudo ethtool -s eth0 wol g

Best

[satosh]

My realtek nic rtl8111 (integrated on p7p55d-e) would only run in 10Mbps on either ubuntu lucid 64bit and win7. The cold boot (a couple of minutes off with no power plugged into the PC) worked. Thanks!

[carsonrose]

I have a Toshiba laptop that uses the RTL8111, I just tried the hard reboot, took the battery out of my laptop, then waited 4 or 5 minutes then put it back in. I still have no eth0. I see the green light solid and the orange light blinking.... but I cant get online.

[slickvguy]

FWIW, this happened to me today as well.
I have a GA-H55M-UD2H w/ onboard RTL8111D.
I installed Win7. No problems.
I installed Lucid, and networking was disabled. Well, I've been through this NIC/driver stuff before with other distros, so I thought it would be easy to fix. Unfortunately, after trying all the methods mentioned in various posts around the Internet (i.e. changing the driver to r8168 instead of r8169) - I cannot get it to work.

Worse, when I booted into Win7, the previously working networking was now not working! As mentioned in other posts, the simple solution is to pull the PC plug for a minute or so in order to completely drain the motherboard of power. That worked.

So not only does this f'n interface/driver combination not work in Lucid - but it puts the NIC in a state that Win7 can't pull it out of! I will look into this matter further over the coming hours/days and see what I can do about it. Yeah, I could just slap in a compatible PCI card - but I don't want to unless I absolutely have to.

[slickvguy]

I have a Toshiba laptop that uses the RTL8111, I just tried the hard reboot, took the battery out of my laptop, then waited 4 or 5 minutes then put it back in. I still have no eth0. I see the green light solid and the orange light blinking.... but I cant get online.

You removed the battery - but did you still have your laptop plugged into an AC outlet? If so, do whatever you have to do to make sure there's NO power going to the motherboard/NIC. Drain it. Also, try powering off/on the router. It's not damaged - it's just stuck in a bad state.

[slickvguy]

Success!

OK, I'm not 100% sure, but it now appears that it was the original driver (r8169) that put the NIC in a "dead state". Because after draining PC's power and verifying in Win7 that the NIC was working - I booted back into Lucid...and now the NIC is finally working (using r8168).

[carsonrose]

You removed the battery - but did you still have your laptop plugged into an AC outlet? If so, do whatever you have to do to make sure there's NO power going to the motherboard/NIC. Drain it. Also, try powering off/on the router. It's not damaged - it's just stuck in a bad state.

I unplugged it, then took out the battery.... still no luck!

[slickvguy]

Further update: I want to be clear, in case anyone stumbles upon these posts while searching the net. Earlier, my kernel automatically updated (since this was a fresh install) to 2.6.32-22 (from 21). And guess what? It also has the 8169 driver built in - but it works!

The problem is that once a "bad" driver is used, it puts the NIC in a state that can't be initialize/reset until you pull the plug. So no matter what you try - it won't work. Further, it's obvious that BOTH driver numbers (8168 and 8169) can work. I guess you need the right version (i.e. code) of the driver (or is it something to do with the kernel and not the driver code?). I have r8168-8.018.00. I can confirm that one works.

So now I'm back to using the r8169 and it works. So either it's a different version and/or other code was changed. Either way, I'm a very happy camper.