OT: Laptop ethernet card dropping connection

[reaver]

I've done quite a few searches on Google and some linux help forums without any avail.

I'm running Mandrake 9.2 and everything works great with SEQ.

However, my PCMCIA Ethernet Card (Netgear), will drop my ethernet link on random occasions. (Using cable modem with Linksys router, then going to a Hub for broadcasting to my SEQ and EQ machines).

Typically this happens when I am trying to download a file from this laptop. CVS, tarball downloads, Mandrake Update, etc.

If I just boot up and sniff packets, then the ethernet connection stays up for a long time.

I'm guessing (still a novice with linux), that it might be a conflict between the kernal driver and an outside driver.

Any suggestions and direction pointing is appreciated to stabalize the connection.

-reaver

[BlueAdept]

I had a similar problem a while back when I had RH8 running on a laptop. With a noname pcmcia 10/100 mbit network card.

It sounds like you narrowed down the problem a little more than I did though.

For me, I gave up on the card and I switched over to a USB network adapter. Again RH8 started doing a similar thing. The USB was a lot worse though. It would work for only about 30 min before it would stop.

I got another pcmcia card and that one seemed to work flawlessly, but I didnt keep it long. I sold that laptop and got another (but have winxp on it with VMware).

The problem probably resides in the drivers for the card or with the card itself not being fully linux compatable. Do you know of anyone that you could borrow a card from to try?