dhclient failure with Realtek 8111E Etnernet on new MSI motherboard

[Torfinn Ingolfsen]

On Sun, 22 Sep 2013 20:28:08 +0000
"Thomas Mueller" <mueller6724 at bellsouth.net> wrote:

> I've been unable to establish Internet connection from a new computer with Realtek 811E Ethernet despite this Ethernet chip working on another computer with another MSI motherboard.

In additiin to the information you have already provided, you should also provide relevant output from pciconf, like so:
root at kg-core1# pciconf -lv | grep -A 4 re0
re0 at pci0:2:0:0:	class=0x020000 card=0x84321043 chip=0x816810ec rev=0x06 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Realtek Semiconductor'
    device     = 'Gigabit Ethernet NIC(NDIS 6.0) (RTL8168/8111/8111c)'
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet
(substitute the name of your interface for "re0")
and also ifconfig output like this:
root at kg-core1# ifconfig re0
re0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
	options=8209b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
	ether 50:46:5d:8b:a2:ea
	inet 10.1.150.50 netmask 0xffff0000 broadcast 10.1.255.255
	media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
	status: active
(again, substitute the name of your interface for "re0")

As far as fault-finding "tricks" go, here is one that have helped me on several occasions in the past:
before doing anything with a network interface (in other words, before starting DHCP), try doing a 'ifconfig <interface> up'
for example ifconfig re0 up
After that, use the interface normally.
If it works, you have found a bug related to the driver and the specific hardware revsion of you card. Create a PR for it.
HTH
-- 
Torfinn Ingolfsen <torfinn.ingolfsen at getmail.no>