Network problem in Lucid with RTL-8139 (solved)

[Laurynas Butkus]

Binary package hint: grub

After upgrade to Lucid my network stopped working and system became unstable - random freezes.
When booting from live cd it was the same. Looks like some hardware conflict.

SOLUTION: add "noapic" to grub kernel options.

My fixed kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst looks like this:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-21-generic root=UUID=b53c210d-3a12-4afc-9f8b-3fd73878bb41 ro quiet splash noapic

I reproduced this problem on two identical PCs.

lspci output:

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Xpress 200 Host Bridge (rev 01)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI-X Root Port
00:11.0 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 Serial ATA Controller (rev 80)
00:12.0 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 Serial ATA Controller (rev 80)
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (rev 80)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (rev 80)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB2 Host Controller (rev 80)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 SMBus Controller (rev 82)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 IDE Controller (rev 80)
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB4x0 High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-ISA Bridge (rev 80)
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-PCI Bridge (rev 80)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G71 [GeForce 7300 GS] (rev a1)
02:02.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)

[Daniel Faulkner (daniel-faulkner)]

Have you tried updating the computers BIOS? This can sometimes fix issues like this without the need to add the noapic command to grub.

[Laurynas Butkus (laurynas-butkus)]

Actually I haven't. That's desktop computer assembled locally in Lithuania so I guess it can be tricky to find right bios update... Anyway, thanks for the tip!

[madbiologist (me-again)]

If you run "sudo dmidecode" (without the quotation marks""), the second section (titled System Information) and the third section (titled Base Board Information) should give you the manufacturer and model (product name) of your motherboard. You can then look on the manufacturers website for a BIOS update.

[dino99 (9d9)]

Lucid is no more a supported version; and grub legacy upstream is also stopped, only receiving possible random fixes locally