Dead On-board Ethernet

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alan Jeffs
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Alan Jeffs

I have two identical machines, 18 months old (out of warranty!) that I
bought from Staples for my twin girls. Their supplier at that time was
Proteva - now out of business. The network connectivity on both has been
nothing but trouble, kicking out at ~3 month interval. At first I returned
them (twice each) for repair/recovery under warranty. Then I found that
vacuuming out the dust bunnies seemed to work for a while (why?). Now that
doesn't work.

The ethernet connection is on-board so, perhaps, the solution is to put a
separate ethernet card in the PCI slot and disable the on-board one. I
understand that I'll have to do this in the BIOS - that I am nervous about
changing. The OS is Windows ME Home.

Anyone with other suggestions? Or, exactly what do I do to the BIOS?

Alan
 
Alan Jeffs said:
I have two identical machines, 18 months old (out of warranty!) that I
bought from Staples for my twin girls.

Strike one... Staples is an office supply store. There's no good reason to
purchase a PC there.
Their supplier at that time was Proteva - now out of business. The
network connectivity on both has been nothing but trouble, kicking out at
~3 month interval. At first I returned them (twice each) for
repair/recovery under warranty. Then I found that vacuuming out the dust
bunnies seemed to work for a while (why?).

Strike two... Vacuuming the inside of a PC is BAD. Use a can of compressed
air and blow the dust out occasionally.
The ethernet connection is on-board so, perhaps, the solution is to put a
separate ethernet card in the PCI slot and disable the on-board one. I
understand that I'll have to do this in the BIOS - that I am nervous about
changing. The OS is Windows ME Home.

Strike three... You're running Windows ME. The *WORST* operating system ever
release by Micro$oft.

So, how do you know that the port isn't working? Maybe the software is bad?
What are you connecting the computers to? Do you get LINK lights on the back
of the PC's at the ethernet jack? How about on the hub/switch/router that
you are plugging the computers into?
 
Noozer,

Thanks for your sympathetic response!

As regards your last (on topic) comment, don't think I didn't check all that
stuff. The router is good, the cables are good (when switched to another
machine), but there are no connection lights. This is an ex-LAN!!
 
Alan Jeffs said:
I have two identical machines, 18 months old (out of warranty!) that I bought from
Staples for my twin girls. Their supplier at that time was Proteva - now out of
business. The network connectivity on both has been nothing but trouble, kicking out at
~3 month interval. At first I returned them (twice each) for repair/recovery under
warranty. Then I found that vacuuming out the dust bunnies seemed to work for a while
(why?).

Maybe the time required to do that let them
cool down enough to see the problem go away.
Now that doesn't work.
The ethernet connection is on-board so, perhaps, the solution is to put a separate
ethernet card in the PCI slot and disable the on-board one.

Hard to see that its likely that its actually died with that vacuuming effect.
I understand that I'll have to do this in the BIOS - that I am nervous about changing.

Yeah, unlikely to be something as basic as dead onboard NICs.
The OS is Windows ME Home.
Anyone with other suggestions?

Work out what exactly is going on.
Or, exactly what do I do to the BIOS?

That should be rather obvious, there should be an enable/disable for the onboard NIC.
 
"Alan Jeffs" said:
I have two identical machines, 18 months old (out of warranty!) that I
bought from Staples for my twin girls. Their supplier at that time was
Proteva - now out of business. The network connectivity on both has been
nothing but trouble, kicking out at ~3 month interval. At first I returned
them (twice each) for repair/recovery under warranty. Then I found that
vacuuming out the dust bunnies seemed to work for a while (why?). Now that
doesn't work.

The ethernet connection is on-board so, perhaps, the solution is to put a
separate ethernet card in the PCI slot and disable the on-board one. I
understand that I'll have to do this in the BIOS - that I am nervous about
changing. The OS is Windows ME Home.

Anyone with other suggestions? Or, exactly what do I do to the BIOS?

Alan

When I stick an ethernet card in my PC, I don't have to touch the
BIOS. Plug the card in, then use the driver disk that comes with
the card, and install a driver for it. If the card came from the
"barrel of ethernet cards" at the computer store, you'd go to
sites like ReakTek or whoever makes the chip on the card, and
get a driver from there. The process should not be traumatic.

This is a manual for a typical networking card, so you can see
how simple the install process is.

http://www.startech.com/Data/ProductManuals/st100s.pdf?c=CA

This is their installer software. Once you unzip it, copy
the WinME folder to a floppy. Then follow the instructions
in the manual. There is no Installshield installer, so the
process is a bit more manual in nature. You can also go to
Device Manager, select properties on the new ethernet
card, and update the driver from there. Then point the
driver update to the folder containing the files on the
floppy. Once the installer sees the .INF file inside the
WinME folder on the floppy, it should be happy and finish
the job.

http://www.startech.com/Data/ProductDrivers/st100s.zip?c=CA

The three files in the install folder are

Netrts.cat
Netrts5.INF (the INF file)
R8139n5.sys

so the Startech product is obviously a cheap RealTek chip.

Note that when the .INF file is copies into the system folder,
Windows will likely change the file name of the file. If you
are looking for it later, that may be why you can't find it.
It might be renamed to something like OEM15.INF or the like.
Presumably this is done to avoid naming conflicts. I don't know
if that is a common practice on all OSes or not.

Paul
 
Paul,

Thanks for the constructive input. I'll follow up on your links and I'm
sure I'll have it fixed.

Alan
 
No link lights...

- Wrong cables. They may be "turnover" cables and work fine with other
equipment that senses this better.

- Bad drivers. Not likely, but some adapters (3com for example) will not
show a link light if the driver hasn't initialized properly. Try a different
version of the driver. What kind of chip/driver does it use?

- Bad hardware. This is what it sounds like, but it would be very unlikely
that two PC's would have the same defect.
 
I have two identical machines, 18 months old (out of warranty!) that I
bought from Staples for my twin girls. Their supplier at that time was
Proteva - now out of business. The network connectivity on both has been
nothing but trouble, kicking out at ~3 month interval. At first I returned
them (twice each) for repair/recovery under warranty. Then I found that
vacuuming out the dust bunnies seemed to work for a while (why?). Now that
doesn't work.

The ethernet connection is on-board so, perhaps, the solution is to put a
separate ethernet card in the PCI slot and disable the on-board one. I
understand that I'll have to do this in the BIOS - that I am nervous about
changing. The OS is Windows ME Home.

Anyone with other suggestions? Or, exactly what do I do to the BIOS?

Alan

Don't be nervous about trying a PCI Ethernet card. They are cheap, so
just experiment with it.
Most of the time, the system itself will swicht to the PCI card, but
going into the BIOS is nobig deal: you will find a dis/en-able setting
for the network interface...
Just look around in the BIOS setup first... exit it and start up
again... get the feeling... It sounds much more "hi tech", "advanced",
"professional" than it really is, except for some settings. If you do
not understand settings: hands off.
If you feel unsure, just exit the BIOS setup, without saving values.
Write down what you changed in the BIOS, so you can find your way
back...

Suggestion: make digital photo of the screen before/after.
(but then: you have two identical machines...)

In a system, you can have more than one NIC. No problem. You will see
them in the Windows setting. Disable one there, if you like.

WinME is baaaad indeed, yes. if you have the resources (like 512 Mb
memory minimum) go to XP. (or to Win98 2nd Ed , haha)
But this does not need to be the source of your current troubles.

The trouble may have its cause in Windows settings of course. like IP
addressing, DHCP , DNS... etc... but that is another matter.
I hope your identical machines are not THAT identical that they have
the same IP address too hihi.
 
Alan said:
I have two identical machines, 18 months old (out of warranty!) that I
bought from Staples for my twin girls. Their supplier at that time was
Proteva - now out of business. The network connectivity on both has been
nothing but trouble, kicking out at ~3 month interval. At first I returned
them (twice each) for repair/recovery under warranty. Then I found that
vacuuming out the dust bunnies seemed to work for a while (why?). Now that
doesn't work.

The ethernet connection is on-board so, perhaps, the solution is to put a
separate ethernet card in the PCI slot and disable the on-board one. I
understand that I'll have to do this in the BIOS - that I am nervous about
changing. The OS is Windows ME Home.

Anyone with other suggestions? Or, exactly what do I do to the BIOS?

Alan

If its the NIC itself,
either:
disable it in BIOS setup
disable it in windows devices
or simply ignore and use the new card, if this works.


NT
 
Noozer said:
No link lights...
- Wrong cables. They may be "turnover" cables and work fine with other equipment that
senses this better.

Doesnt explain the vaccuuming effect.
- Bad drivers. Not likely, but some adapters (3com for example) will not show a link
light if the driver hasn't initialized properly. Try a different version of the driver.
What kind of chip/driver does it use?

Doesnt explain the vaccuuming effect.
- Bad hardware. This is what it sounds like, but it would be very unlikely that two PC's
would have the same defect.

I guess its possible to see a dry joint effect with two copys
of the same PC if that was a particular problem with that design.
 
All,

Both machines are now working perfectly on Plan B - NIC in the PCI slot.
Installation went smoothly, up and running again in 10 minutes. Disabling
the on-board was also a piece of cake. Thanks to all for support. I know
it's bread and butter for you but I'm more of a software guy than a hardware
one.

Alan
 
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