The NIC fails to show up under Linux systems (no eth0), which is claimed as normal from what I have read. I subsequently booted a FreeBSD variant; fxp0 shows up, gets IP using dhclient, but that's about it. The NIC can't ping, can't send or receive any traffic.
"tcpdump" shows the NIC constantly sending "Request who-has <gateway-ip> tell <dhcp-assigned-ip>" outbound traffic, but gets no response since the traffic is not really being sent. "arp -a" finally shows this, aftermulling over the request for some time. The question mark is not a good sign:
"? (dhcp-assigned-ip) at ab:cd:ef:00:11:22 on fxp0 permanent (ethernet)"
Does this mean the NIC is gone without chance to revive, or is there some magic way to bring it back from the dead?