Re: Strange cabled network fault when rebooting from Windows (any version) into Ubuntu 24

On 2025-11-15 16:17, vallor wrote:
> At Sat, 15 Nov 2025 15:17:26 +0000, Java Jive <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> 
>> On 2025-11-15 15:04, Andy Burns wrote:
>>> Java Jive wrote:
>>>
>>>> It seems to me from this that the cabled network hardware is not
>>>> being properly initialised when booting Ubuntu 24.  The cure is
>>>> simply to actually power down the PC before launching Ubuntu 24
>>>
>>> I had some older Dells (Precision and Dimension) which disabled the
>>> NIC if it wasn't physically connected at the time it booted
>>> Windows, there was a utility to re-enable it, probably doesn't
>>> exist for Linux (though Dell were pretty good with their Linux
>>> support via Fedora last time I kept up with it).
>>
>> Interesting piece of info ...  However, during the testing these were
>> in E-Dock stations  -  from which they are only undocked when I
>> travel, so weren't undocked during testing  -  so seemingly there
>> wouldn't be any reason for either OS to disable the netcard, as it
>> was permanently connected during the testing.
> 
> Weird problem.  If you want to troubleshoot, you might get
> it into failure mode, then run ethtool on the ethernet device
> to see if auto-negotiation is happening properly, if the
> Linux driver thinks link is detected, and so forth.
> 
> What chipset does your Ethernet use, and is it part
> of the dock?  It appears that Intel driver modules
> have a "debug" option that can be set, not sure if
> that helps...

Thanks for the suggestions, but now I know what causes it and the simple 
fix, probably I shall just try to remember always to shut down the PC 
before going into Ubuntu.

Back now in Windows, the cabled net card is described as 'Intel Ethernet 
Connection I217-LM', and this doesn't change when docking and undocking 
the PC.  Similarly, another PC's net card, again regardless of whether 
it is docked or not, is described as 'Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network 
Connection' (I haven't tested the Ubuntu 24 problem on that one, as it 
wasn't the PC I noticed the problem on).  Given this, I think the dock 
is merely an alternative connection between the PC's network interface 
and the outside world, and doesn't have it's own separate network 
interface in the dock itself.

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