System can’t detect NIC

Hi, all. I’m somewhat of a newbie w/ the following prob.:
Installed RH6.1 on a 486DX2100 whitebox w/32MB RAM (yeah, I know, but if I can get it all to work here, think of the posibilities… Please don’t tell me I should use better hardware; I want to make this work). Everything works w/ the exception of a NIC. Have tried NE2000 compatible and SMC Ultra 8216. The NICs do show link and activity, but system simply won’t detect them. I’ve looked at the /var/log/messages and /var/log/dmseg for any clues, but nothing. Have tried autoprobe…nothing. Any advice as to how I might solve this prob. would be greatly appreciated.