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I have just installed Linux Mint on my netbook (HP Compac Mini 700). I have managed to make it connect to WiFi, downloading driver, but it won't connect via cable.

Strangely enough, the other day, it suddenly did connect via cable, me not having done anything. Then the next day it was back to "normal" again. No problem with cable or router as other computers connect easily. Please help!

maxschlepzig
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Tom McNamara
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1 Answers1

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There are a few things to check here.

  1. Check the integrity of the cable by connecting that same cable to another laptop (maybe a friends) or to a desktop PC (if you have one). I know you mentioned this in your post, but it's good to double and triple check.
  2. Another check would be to connect that same patch cable from your modem to your switch/router/wap. If you lose connectivity to the external network (WWW), then you can determine the cable is compromised. As you said,

Strangely enough, the other day, it suddenly did connect via cable, me not having done anything. Then the next day it was back to "normal" again.

  1. Another possibility is that the RJ45 port on your laptop is not functioning correctly. If you have any Windows partition on the laptop, you can try booting into Windows and reconnect the patch cable to the Rj45 port and see if it connects to your network immediately and gives you internet access.

When the patch cable is plugged in, use ifconfig from the terminal to make sure the eth0 is actually being seen. Also try ifup eth0 from a terminal to turn on the local ethernet interface.

I ran Linux Mint 17.1 Xfce x86 on my Lenovo Y410P for a number of months with no issue connecting to my network via the RJ45 port.

In your case, if you have previously had Mint connecting to the world wide web from your notebook via patch cable, the troubleshooting should be relatively easy from here.

I know my answer probably seems redundant, but layer 1 in the OSI model is the physical layer and the beginning place for all troubleshooting.

Christopher S. Atkins
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  • So, I have tried the computer with three different cables, no luck. Also I am using the original cable to connect to you and that seems to be working fine ;-) I was running Windows 7 with a cable before I installed Linux, no problem, so it shouldn't be anything physically wrong with the port. I tried "ifconfig" and "ifup eth0" with the following response.. – Tom McNamara Jul 18 '15 at 16:13
  • kamran@kamran-Compaq-Mini ~ $ ifconfig lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1 RX packets:121 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:121 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:9007 (9.0 KB) TX bytes:9007 (9.0 KB) – Tom McNamara Jul 18 '15 at 16:18
  • wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:2c:4b:c5:ee inet6 addr: fe80::224:2cff:fe4b:c5ee/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 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:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) Interrupt:16 Base address:0xc000 kamran@kamran-Compaq-Mini ~ $ ifup eth0 ifup: failed to open lockfile /run/network/.ifstate.lock: Permission denied kamran@kamran-Compaq-Mini ~ $ – Tom McNamara Jul 18 '15 at 16:18