I think my message wasn’t communicated clearly, because I get a sense that the frequency of my issue is being misunderstood.
ONLY when I boot from cold-start for a new day/session, the system sometimes comes up, presents by MATE session, only to discover that the networking function is “dead as a doornail”.
Usually, when I “restart” from that condition (not shut down and boot), the proper devices are detected and networking services are started as expected.
For that reason, I believe that Eugene’s comment regarding the behaviour being a symptom of pending hardware failure (thermal stress/fracture) is for me the most logical, which is why I started discussing the adding of a new RJ45 card as a stop-gap measure, until I can afford to get a new computer.
does journalctl -xb tell you anything about the network?
Does your pc have an old BIOS?
the pc boots up, bios tells all components to wake up. If your onboard nic does not, there should be an error from systemd trying to bring up the network.
latest bios M4A78-E BIOS 2603 Version 2603 759.26 KB 2012/01/31
Ah, so the issue only appears upon first boot after being powered off? And, if it does occur, a restart at that point resolves the issue? Please confirm that is a correct understanding. It makes a difference in diagnosing the issue.
But still plan on sending the output of lspci and ifconfig the next time this happens. That remains pertinent even if it only happens after power-on.
Maybe you’ve tried this already, but would it make sense to try a cold boot from a live USB (maybe with a clean, regular Ubuntu LTS)? Just to further confirm that it’s not a software issue by seeing whether the interface also doesn’t appear in the live environment.
One more thing, is this pc over 10 years old? if so, check the cmos battery on the m/b. Healthy battery is between 3.0 and 3.3 V If voltage is below 2.6 V, replace it.
Thank you, Andreas! I will try that for the next few times, hoping that it happens to see if the issue is reproduced with a Live boot. Will let you know.
another idea: do a power drain, turn off the pc, remove power plug from wall or psu, push the power button for 30 sec. It should drain all the power on the mb. Start the pc and test.
When a PC’s onboard Ethernet stops working from a cold state (e.g., first boot of the day), it is usually caused by power state hiccups, corrupted drivers, or a failing CMOS. The purpose of the Power drain is to reset the mb to a fresh state.
Somehow, your onboard nic is dead (Eugene) or in deep sleep. I’m trying to find ways to wake it up.
But if the problem is only at power-on boot of system, isn’t it already starting from a cold state, or does that Motherboard still have some “trickle-power” running thoughout the board, even in a “power-off” state?
In my years with computers, I had one onboard nic going to deep sleep which I could not wake up. It had to do with Windows and Fast Startup state but since I don’t know windows, I put another nic and worked with that.
Yes, the mb has a bunch of capacitors which remain charged for a long period of time. There are non volatile memory chips that do not forget their settings. Windows tends to hibernate a pc instead of completely turning it off. Their argument, it boots faster.
Thank you, Pavlos. I really appreciate your time, thoughts and insights!
As I said earlier, I am looking at getting another Internet card, so I will revisit the issue, if it shows up again before I install the new card (within the next week)!
Yes it does.
Don’t forget that your powerbutton is a low voltage momentary switch which connects to the mother board directly (not to the powersupply).
That means that the motherboard needs a minimum operating condition to detect a press on the powerbutton and signal the powersupply to go from standby to on.
The only way to switch a computer 100% off is by using the switch on the powersupply (if it has one) or unplug the powercord.
Now, is there a /etc/modprobe.d/atl1e.conf ? if not, create and add the powersave option.
echo "options atl1e ps_enable=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/atl1e.conf
The idea is, the pc starts, the nic loads atl1e module, checks in /etc/modprobe.d/ if there are options to set. If so, do it. Maybe this will keep the nic from sleeping.
