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Does this sound like a faulty mb or some other issue? The mb is PCI Express, but the graphics card is working fine so I assume that isn't a problem.

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Mm.. the driver won't find it unless it also shows up in /proc/pci (or the more modern, "lspci -v").

  04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd.: Unknown device 4361 (rev 17)

          Subsystem: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 3063

          Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 177

          Memory at fe8fc000 (64-bit, non prefetchable) [size=16K]

          I/O ports at c800 [size=256]

          Expansion ROM at fe8c0000 [disabled]  [size=16K]

          Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 2

          Capabilities: [50] Vital Product Data

          Capabilities: [5c] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/1 Enable-

          Capabilities: [e0] Express Legacy Endpoint IRQ 0

          Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting

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The link lights on my machines don't normally light up until the driver initializes the card.

I was about to doubt myself and my comment and say "Ignore me! I think maybe I am lousing my mind!....Jim, this is a PC, not a switch or something!"

As a sanity test, though, I forced a PC here into a failed boot (set all boot devices to non-existent floppy) and I do indeed get a link state light at the point where it halts upon not finding a bootable partition/device -- no OS/driver. At this point, if I unplug the cable, link light goes out. This is what I would expect.

It very, very well may be that manufacturers implement layer 2 indicators differently and I just haven't grabbed that clue. I *have* encountered cases, though, where ethernet shows up in lspci et al as a valid device but the port still doesn't work (and no link light) because the electronic aspects of the interface are recognized but the actual physical interface is borked -- could be so simple as a bad pin/solder on RJ45.

Even with device recognition under the OS, if Rob's swapped in 2-3 other cables and another switch, that is one of the main things I would suspect.

Interesting, though

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...but my XP Gold installer hangs...

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04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd.: Unknown device 4361 (rev 17)

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/* Don't handle Yukon2 cards at the moment */
if (pdev->vendor == 0x11ab) {
if ( (pdev->device == 0x4360) || (pdev->device == 0x4361) )
continue;
}

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but you can easily build an XP+SP2 CD by following the instructions here.

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Easially in that case meaning a good bit of work with different programs.

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This is a big reason why Windoze remains popular. You still need to be a geek to use linux. I despise Microsoft and I think their products are an abortion, but this is the kind of thing that makes people put up with their horrible software and security. It *appears* to work.

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I don't agree with your argument. To get Windoze working on that system would have taken an analogous step - locating a device driver for a product that was newer than the base OS.

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This is a big reason why Windoze remains popular. You still need to be a geek to use linux.

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Experimenting with various Linux distros on an AMD64 and an Intel 925 P4 box over the last couple of weeks has been a nightmare.

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Linux (FedoraCore2, in this instance) on the same hardware installed more smoothly, had built-in drivers for EVERYTHING, and just plain worked.

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Fedora Core 2 was released after XP though...

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Apart from WinXP (separate post in this topic), the other big new O/S I have tried this year is Debian Sarge (a Linux distro).

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I really miss Debian's package management!

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Nothing wrong with the Debian "testing" stream, aka "Sarge". It's the "unstable" stream that tends to be very prickly! New hardware support is usually just a matter of the kernel, and most times that matters one will likely be building their own custom kernel eventually regardless.

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But AMD64 support.. mmm.. yummy! Sounds like a great platform that 4-way/32G one!

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Oh? It was a EtherExpress Pro based thing? If so then yeah, it should have worked without any problems.

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Intel did cock up Etherexpress Pro at one stage