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I'm running Kubuntu 20.04 on an older PC. The NIC on the motherboard has been giving me trouble recently, occasionally disconnecting and requiring a reboot to reconnect. So I added a PCIe Ethenert Card, but it won't pull an IP address. The card is an old TP-Link NT TG-3648 hardware v2, that I found among my spare parts. I've tried both PCIe ports on my motherboard.

When I run lspci -v | grep Ethernet -A 1 i get this output:

01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0c)
        Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Onboard Ethernet
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
--
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)
        Subsystem: TP-LINK Technologies Co., Ltd. TG-3468 Gigabit PCI Express Network Adapter

This tells me the system is recognizing the card, but for some reason I cannot get an IP address when I plug an ethernet cable into that port. Could this be a driver issue? There is no official linux driver for this hardware version on TP-Link's website, and I'm not sure where else I could get a driver from. When I search online, TP-Link's site is the only one that comes up that provides any driver's, but they are all for Windows. Any help is appreciated.

spci -knn | grep Eth -A3 output:

01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 0c)
        Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Onboard Ethernet [1458:e000]
        Kernel driver in use: r8169
        Kernel modules: r8169


04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 06)
        Subsystem: TP-LINK Technologies Co., Ltd. TG-3468 Gigabit PCI Express Network Adapter [7470:3468]
        Kernel driver in use: r8169
        Kernel modules: r8169
Terrance
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sbbid
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  • Please [edit] your question and add output of lspci -knn | grep Eth -A3 terminal command. – Pilot6 Feb 16 '23 at 14:55
  • I believe your system is loading the r8169 driver which is very flaky on the 8168 chipset. Possible answer: https://askubuntu.com/a/1321823/231142 – Terrance Feb 16 '23 at 15:03
  • @Pilot6, I added the output as requested. – sbbid Feb 16 '23 at 15:19
  • Do you connect to a router or directly to an ISP? – Pilot6 Feb 16 '23 at 15:29
  • @Pilot6. I have a Net gear router R6400. – sbbid Feb 16 '23 at 15:46
  • Please add output of sudo dmesg | grep enp – Pilot6 Feb 16 '23 at 15:52
  • @Terrance, it looks like the driver mentioned in your link fixed the issue. Thanks for the help. – sbbid Feb 16 '23 at 15:58
  • No problem! You are actually lucky that all you had to do was unplug the Ethernet cable and plug it back in. Mine was getting to the point of having to do a full power cycle of the host to get it to come back up. This was years ago that it happened to me. After I installed the r8168 driver it has worked flawless for me. I have never looked back since. – Terrance Feb 18 '23 at 01:05

1 Answers1

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I don't think it is related to drivers. It is more likely some settings are wrong.

But you can try to install another driver by

sudo apt install r8168-dkms
Pilot6
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  • I recently installed the same NIC and it works well witout r8168. But it is another revision of the chip. You never know. – Pilot6 Feb 16 '23 at 16:15