[gentoo-hardened] e1000e integrated laptop NIC loses carrier

[Tóth Attila]

I don't know if it's just me, but I noticed, that I cannot connect to my
laptop after a while. It happens using hardened kernel versions 3.8.2 &
3.8.3, however 3.8.0-r1 seems to be free of this problem.
The interface stays up, the LED are showing normal status, but attempts to
use the card are unsuccessful. Ethtool reports no carrier. Therefore I
cannot renew the DHCP address. NIC selftests return without any problem.
It's probably non-hardened-related, but I thought I would communicate my
findings to the list, because others might struggling with it as well. I
cannot find any relevant results on google.
The only message I could discover in my logs is that suddenly the laptop
switches on its wireless card automatically, which happens if there's no
wired connection. Right after that the wireless gets switched off again
immediately. At this time I can no longer use eth0. But still be able to
connect using the wireless interface.
Intel pci-e NICs are so abundant, that I hope others will also experience
these symptoms which will bring the attention of the driver maintainers or
whatever responsible folks.

Regards:
Dw.
-- 
dr Tóth Attila, Radiológus, 06-20-825-8057
Attila Toth MD, Radiologist, [phone]