On Tue, 15 Jan 2002, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:

> >--- Greywolf <greywolf@starwolf.com> wrote:
> >> Greetings,
> >> 
> >> I have a dell-410 at work which has what the kernel
> >> thinks is an ex
> >> on board.  I'm not convinced it IS an ex for real,
> >> because as soon
> >> as I ifconfig the interface up, the lights go out.
> >> 
> >> ...is this a quirk?
> >
> 
> I missed the original post.  However, I've had problems with the 
> built-in 3c905b in my Dell Precision-410.  The fix is to specify the 
> media type explicitly -- the fault is in the autonegotiation.

My experience with Dells using this onboard NIC is the same.
Autonegotiation didn't work, in fact one system I remember having to
force it to 10Base2 even though it didn't have thinwire ethernet on
it.  My suggestion try all the media options.