Raspberry Pi Ethernet Problem

Hi Eric,

You say you have "checked all the network items", but you don't say what these are or how you checked them.

Are you using an ehternet cable to connect the Pi into your router, or are you trying to use a USB WiFi dongle?

If you are trying to use WiFi, get an ethernet cable and use that first.

If you are using a cable are you plugging it directly into your router or into a separate switch?

What is the router you are using?

Have you tested your ethernet cable with another device, like a laptop, to make sure it works OK?

Christian

It uses a wired connection. I have ran other computers on the same hub port with the same ethernet cable and they connect to the internet without a problem. I have tried connecting the raspberry pi directly to my cable modem using the same cable that was tested with other computers and still the three network lights on the raspberry pi just blink repeatedly without connecting.  What would cause all 3 lights to blink? 

Ah, cable, do you have a separate hub connected to the cable modem? Or does the cable modem have a built-in hub?

When you connect the Pi to your hub and power it on, does the hub port light come on?

We also need the answer to Gary's question. Open a Terminal and type:

ifconfig

Then post us what the terminal replies.

You should see something like this:

I see the following when I do that:

eth0

Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr b8:27:eb:d7:43

UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

TX packets:5 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:1750 (1.7 KiB)

lo

Link encap:local Loopback

inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0

UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1

RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

RX bytes:0  (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0  (0.0 B)

I do have a hub connected to a router connected to a modem but the same result happens when plugged in directly too.

I checked. It is enabled.

In that case it seems that the network device is OK. Try manually setting the network configuration.

Use your favourite editor on /etc/network/interfaces file. Make sure it looks like this:

auto eth0

iface eth0 inet dhcp

If that works, you should be good to go. If that doesn't work then set the IP address manually, you need to know the subnet, usually 192.168.0.0 or 192.168.1.0, and your router IP address,

auto eth0

    iface eth0 inet static

        address 192.168.0.55

        netmask 255.255.255.0

        gateway 192.168.0.254

If this works you should have network connection, man interfaces should give you more information on this file should you need it.

This will test whether you can get a network configuration loaded. If you can then se if you can ping your router.

I tried both. By setting it to DHCP, upon reboot it just searched several times for an IP address but never got one. I tried to ping once it rebooted and nothng. I also tried setting a static IP as you said and nothing for a ping still. Perhaps something is physically wrong with the ethernet port?

That is possibility, but more likely it is your ethernet cable. Test that on a workimg system just to discount it.

Also try one of the other distributions or an updated copy of Raspbian from here http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads

(you didn't say what version you were running).

Also check your router is actually sending DHCP out on the ethernet port (you didn't mention what router you had).

If you have managed to configure a static IP address properly can you post the output of ifconfig please. Also can you ensure that your chosen IP address is on the same subnet as the router (sorry if this is basic stuff, but I don't like to make assumptions about your experience level as you haven't said).

Another trick is to connect another device into the wired network and try that out. Once you have a working connection on that device try connecting to the Pi or vice versa. It would be useful if you could also post the output of ipconfig /a from any Windows device you have connected, or ifconfig from a Mac or Linux terminal session on the other device.

Ethernet ports are usually quite reliable. Mostly it is bad cables, dodgy DHCP configurations or problems with the arbitration of a connection speed with the switch/hub. On that subject what is your switch/hub (manufacturer and model)?

Please also list your IP address configuration for the internal network of your router, Pi and other wire connected computing device, just so we are clear that everything is OK.

Christian

Eric Finendale wrote:

 

I tried both. By setting it to DHCP, upon reboot it just searched several times for an IP address but never got one. I tried to ping once it rebooted and nothng. I also tried setting a static IP as you said and nothing for a ping still. Perhaps something is physically wrong with the ethernet port?

The LEDs blinking might mean that the Ethernet port is trying to auto-negotiate and/or auto-MDIX (exchanging the RX and TX pairs so it doesn't matter what kind of cable you have plugged in) and is failing due to a bad Ethernet cable or physically bad Ethernet jack on the RasPi.  Check it carefully with a strong light to make sure the pins look good, and check the discrete resistors and capacitors near the Ethernet jack for bad solder joints and missing components.  Make sure the Ethernet jack pins actually go through the board and are soldered properly.  (A long shot is that the manufacturer used the wrong kind of Ethernet magjack, but that's pretty unlikely.)

If trying to ping RasPi causes it to reboot you may have a hardware problem.  Check the TP1-TP2 voltage, since iffy power supplies can cause all sorts of RasPi problems: see the RasPi Troubleshooting Wiki here and here.

Another possibility is a bad OS image.  You might try rewriting the OS image onto your SD card.

If none of these work, it might be a bad solder joint or cracked PC board trace somewhere and you should RMA.