getting a Mac address off of a dead motherboard

  • Thread starter Thread starter Boris Epstein
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Boris Epstein

Hello people,

I have a Dell Optiplex GX620 who motherboard appears to have died.
Well, what can you say? Everybody dies one day, right?

However, there is a small problem here: we' ve got this software who
license is tied to the MAC address assigned to the network card which
sits on that motherboard. Is there any way to figure out what that MAC
address was?

Any advice much appreciated.

Boris.
 
Boris said:
Hello people,

I have a Dell Optiplex GX620 who motherboard appears to have died.
Well, what can you say? Everybody dies one day, right?
Click to expand...

Yet to be proven. See this video, starting at 3:54:
However, there is a small problem here: we' ve got this software who
license is tied to the MAC address assigned to the network card which
sits on that motherboard. Is there any way to figure out what that MAC
address was?

Any advice much appreciated.
Click to expand...

I would make a careful inspection of the unit, inside and out. I have
see MAC address stickers on several PCs. Failing that, contacting Dell
might suss it out.

Retrieving that information directly from the hardware is, as they say,
beyond my pay grade.
 
Boris said:
I have a Dell Optiplex GX620 who motherboard appears to have died.
Well, what can you say? Everybody dies one day, right?

However, there is a small problem here: we' ve got this software who
license is tied to the MAC address assigned to the network card which
sits on that motherboard. Is there any way to figure out what that MAC
address was?
Click to expand...

You sure the software license is tied to the MAC address. That means
the software is tied to a particular host and cannot be [re]installed
anywhere else - as you are claiming now.

The MAC address is tied to the network adapter. If you replace the NIC
then the hardware-based MAC will change. So it also means that you
could never replace the network card.

An OS can change the MAC address that it reports. In Windows, it is a
property of the device that you look at in Device Manager. That means
an admin user could specify a different software MAC than the hardware
MAC. Although rare, there have been occasions when MACs are identical
on a large corporate network. In the past, some NICs let you reprogram
the MAC (but that only means it could overlap a different one). So the
OS now allows the MAC to be reported from there.

So what is this software? If it is vertical market software, and if the
boob was so stupid as to tie it to a specific MAC address, then you have
to go to the vendor and tell them you need a new version (where the MAC
limitation isn't applied) or to get a fresh install that will read
whatever is the current MAC address on the new host where you install
their buffoonish software. I suspect that it isn't the MAC address but
a firmware signature of brand, model, and serial number on the network
adapter card to which the software is tied. That is, the software came
with that NIC and only works with that NIC until you call their tech
support to get a new copy of the software that will work with a
different NIC and its firmware signature.

If the MAC was tied to a network adapter card, why not simply move it
from the old host to the new one?
 
Boris said:
Hello people,

I have a Dell Optiplex GX620 who motherboard appears to have died.
Well, what can you say? Everybody dies one day, right?

However, there is a small problem here: we' ve got this software who
license is tied to the MAC address assigned to the network card which
sits on that motherboard. Is there any way to figure out what that MAC
address was?

Any advice much appreciated.

Boris.
Click to expand...

Is linux installed on that machine? If so, udev copied the MAC address
to /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules during the first boot-up.
Put the HD into another machine as a slave drive and read it. Easy!
 
VanguardLH said:
Boris Epstein wrote:
( ... ) ( ... )
If the MAC was tied to a network adapter card, why not simply move it
from the old host to the new one?
Click to expand...

Methinks the motherboard had an integrated network adapter. Moving it
requires careful sawing, grafting on PCI contacts, etc.
 
Bryce said:
Methinks the motherboard had an integrated network adapter. Moving it
requires careful sawing, grafting on PCI contacts, etc.
Click to expand...

Hmm, a Frankenstein mobo job. But that still does not prevent
overriding the hardware MAC by having the OS report a different software
MAC.
 
VanguardLH said:
Hmm, a Frankenstein mobo job. But that still does not prevent
overriding the hardware MAC by having the OS report a different software
MAC.
Click to expand...
True enough ... if only he knew what the app wants the MAC to be.
 
Bryce said:
Is linux installed on that machine? If so, udev copied the MAC address
to /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules during the first boot-up.
Put the HD into another machine as a slave drive and read it. Easy!
Click to expand...

And in Windows XP it is stored in the registry under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Genuine Advantage

assuming, of course, that one has gone down the WGA path. I believe it
should be possible to read the registry if the HD is hooked up as a data
drive in another machine but I haven't a clue about the program that would
do the job.
 
Some of the things other people have mention reminds me of another
possibility: My router keeps a list of MAC address so that it's DHCP
server can hand out the same ip address to the same machine. Maybe your
router has the MAC similarly cached?
 
Some of the things other people have mention reminds me of another
possibility: My router keeps a list of MAC address so that it's DHCP
server can hand out the same ip address to the same machine. Maybe your
router has the MAC similarly cached?
Click to expand...

Thanks everybody!

Turned out the corporate IT had a network log going back a year, and
that enabled us to get that MAC address.

Problem solved!

Boris.
 
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