5A30.2

(A fresh reinstall, and it will work) Can't seem to figure out how to save the configuration on a newly installed nic (for purposes of wol and remote boot/admin) so that the card will pick up an ip on a reboot from dhcp server (router). There's got to be a way to do this without wiping everything out just to get a newly installed nic working with dhcp

Have tried netcardconfig, pump -i eth0, ifcfg-eth0 in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
yada, yada

, tried different nics (all work after bootup with ifup eth0), editing interfaces with:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp <----or something to the extent as I"ve read in other posts and on googled linux.

tried: depmod, update-modules, ifconfig eth0 up then netcardconfig, all in different orders.

the new nic will always work, but on boot, no dhcp. and card needs: ifup eth0 to work. Have tried static config as well.

This stage was reached as the onboard nic (Nvidia mac/lan, soltek manu., nforce2) was not working with wol at all (firmware updates all done, by the book, etc, etc). Have disabled/enabled in bios settings, and it will (onboard nic) always pick up an ip from dhcp server when enabled. The other recognized, installed nics, will not.

Again, if I were to wipe out the drive and start again, it will work for me (as I have done this too many times to count), but I'd rather stick it out this time and pretend this is not an option.

An idears?

Figure out what module it needs and make sure that gets loaded before the ifup script runs...

I am was in the same spot until 2am this morning.
If I start from scratch, everything works, but I am not re-installing everything.

I did this and got my card to work as you mention

% ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.22 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.2.255

then add the gateway
% route add default gw 192.168.2.1 192.168.2.1 eth0

and I went ahead and edit /etc/resolv.conf with the DNS by adding this line
nameserver 192.168.2.1

Make sure the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 has the configuration there and you should be all set.

I know you wanted DHCP but countless hours of reading and searching has led me to this path. After all, static ip are more reliable when your router takes a crap and you need to reset the network.
I hope it helps you.

Thanks tjc

That was the answer.

vi /etc/modules

added '3c59x' into the list about half-way up, and the nic works properly on boot (requests ip from dhcp server). (Also, I rem-ed out the forcedeth NIC module. Realized during 'dmesg | grep eth' that forcedeth was the onboard nic module, which I didn't want to work anymore (disabled in CMOS). Also, this pointed me to where to insert the 3com 3c59x module, as well as telling me in the dmesg what the module was actually called)

For anyone following the wake-on-lan (wol) thread here:

even though the 3com card had a little wol cable, and the green light was lit up when the machine was turned off (telling me the nic is receiving some power to listen for its MAC address), it would not work with magic packets. Ie, even broadcasting locally on the lan, the machine would not wake-up. I could have fiddled with it more, but decided to put the older NIC in, though this would mean figuring out which new module to load into /etc/modules (thanks to tjc for the tip!).

Old card goes back in, look at 'dmesg | grep eth' , see 'e100' (note: it's an Intel NIC), so correctly knew this was the module to insert (vi /etc/modules <-- e100). Learn the proper MAC address, boom, machine can be booted anywhere.

Caveat, the only real success with wol I've had is with http://www.dslreports.com/wakeup tool. I've used SolarWinds wakeup tool (it works off and on), AMD's magic packets (not once), and a few others, with no success for over the internet wake-up. (You also need to edit your router to forward ports, etc, UDP port 9, both locally and public).