[Techtalk] network failure help!

[Kathryn Andersen]

Hi folks.
I've got a problem with my (toy) network, and I need help, because I'm
completely stumped.  I'm not a network guru at all, I'm amazed I managed
to set it up in the first place.

My setup is this:
Desktop: Debian testing (with a bit of unstable)
a NatSemi ethernet card

Laptop: Debian testing 
a PCMCIA ethernet card

connected together with a crossover cable.

I also use "netenv" on the laptop to set up a different setup when I'm
at work, to connect to the LAN at work.

Up until recently, both these setups worked.  Then the home network
stopped dead -- nothing, not a single ping got through.  But the work
setup still was fine.  So I thought maybe the crossover cable at home
had finally died the death (as it was given to me secondhand).
So today I bought a new cable, brought it home and plugged it in.

Dead.  Totally dead.

Okay, so it's not a hardware problem.  It seems likely that the desktop
is the culprit, seeing as the laptop connects without trouble when I'm
at work, and the only difference between the setups as far as I can see
is that I assign different IP addresses to the laptop and the
nameserver in the different cases.

So I rebooted a couple of times, both the desktop and the laptop, just to be
paranoid.  Booted an older kernel on the desktop, just in case it was
a faulty driver.

Still no joy.

This is the output of "ifconfig" at the moment (ppp0 is up because I'm
dialled in right now)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:02:E3:1F:D9:B4  
          inet addr:192.168.33.1  Bcast:192.168.33.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:252 (252.0 b)
          Interrupt:10 Base address:0x3000 

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:105 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:105 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:9654 (9.4 KiB)  TX bytes:9654 (9.4 KiB)

ppp0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol  
          inet addr:210.50.33.94  P-t-P:192.168.84.9  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:182 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:126 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:3 
          RX bytes:16298 (15.9 KiB)  TX bytes:9577 (9.3 KiB)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is the output of "dmesg | grep eth0"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
eth0: NatSemi DP8381[56] at 0xc8933000, 00:02:e3:1f:d9:b4, IRQ 10.
eth0: autonegotiation did not complete in 4000 usec.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, something is wrong with the autonegotiation, but I don't know how to
fix it.  And I don't know what I might have done to break things, apart
from doing the usual weekly "apt-get upgrade"... 

Oh and I'm running kernel 2.4.25 if that means anything.

Please help!
What else should I look at?  What is likely that is broken?

Kathryn "disconnected" Andersen
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