Q: Ethernet networking is not working. I get the error message:

"SIOCSIFFLAGS: Try again"

from ifconfig.

A: This usually indicates a hardware conflict with your ethernet controller. Run "ifconfig -a" and check the IRQ and I/O addresses used by the controller. Also, look at the contents of the files /proc/interrupts and /proc/pci to determine what IRQ and I/O addresses are in use on your system. Many ethernet and SCSI drivers cannot share interrupts under Linux. Your system most likely has an IRQ conflict.

To fix IRQ conflicts on PCI bus systems, you can often go into the motherboard BIOS setup and mark the conflicting IRQ as "Used by an ISA Device". This will force the motherboard to reassign the IRQ, often eliminating the conflict.