I am using centos 5 x86_64 AMD64 X2 4200+. I am current on yum update. My machine has two ethernet cards. e1000 (eth0) and forcedeth (eth1) [root at fsdsigns2 ~]# more /etc/modprobe.conf alias eth0 e1000 alias eth1 forcedeth sometimes on boot the forcedeth driver thinks it is eth0: [root at fsdsigns2 ~]# dmesg | grep eth forcedeth.c: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version 0.60. forcedeth: using HIGHDMA eth0: forcedeth.c: subsystem: 01458:e000 bound to 0000:00:07.0 e1000: eth1: e1000_probe: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready e1000: eth1: e1000_watchdog: NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: RX/TX ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth1: link becomes ready eth0: no IPv6 routers present eth1: no IPv6 routers present however, sometimes it starts up correctly: [root at fsdsigns2 ~]# dmesg | grep eth forcedeth.c: Reverse Engineered nForce ethernet driver. Version 0.60. e1000: eth0: e1000_probe: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection forcedeth: using HIGHDMA eth1: forcedeth.c: subsystem: 01458:e000 bound to 0000:00:07.0 e1000: eth0: e1000_watchdog: NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: RX/TX How can I get this connection to RELIABLY come up each time as eth0 is e1000 and eth1 is forcedeth Thanks, Jerry [root at fsdsigns2 ~]# lspci 00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a1) 00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 LPC Bridge (rev a2) 00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SMBus (rev a2) 00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a2) 00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB Controller (rev a2) 00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB Controller (rev a2) 00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI bridge (rev a1) 00:05.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP61 High Definition Audio (rev a2) 00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 IDE (rev a2) 00:07.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Ethernet (rev a2) 00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SATA Controller (rev a2) 00:0d.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 6100 nForce 400 (rev a2) 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control 01:06.0 Network controller: Tiger Jet Network Inc. Tiger3XX Modem/ISDN interface 01:07.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82541PI Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 05)