I've encountered this problem before and I believe it may affect other drivers (I could test but I don't have time). This was happening on my custom Linux system with the pcnet32 driver. pcnet32: eth0: transmit timed out, status 97fb, resetting (and some other kernel module tracing in dmesg) Basically it means the card is connected (it shows connected in full duplex etc.. and recognized if the cable is disconnected too) but no packets can be sent or received........

This is based on Debian Linux but should apply equally to any *nix distro. Install LUKS/crypt-setup apt-get install cryptsetup Setup your LUKS Partition Of course change /dev/md2 with whatever partition you intend to use LUKS on. cryptsetup --verbose --verify-passphrase luksFormat /dev/md2 You'll be asked to verify your decryption password twice *DO NOT FORGET THIS PASSWORD AS IT IS NOT RECOVERABLE!........