My onboard LAN just died. Suggestions?

[Oni]

I was at a LAN party today, and while a friend was copying some files, my onboard NIC just . . . died. I can't explain it. It was humming along great, the next thing I know it just won't work anymore.

We tried switching cables, ports on the patch panel etc. with no joy.

Then I tried fighting with the drivers. I uninstalled the onboard NIC in Device Manager, and when it rebooted it picked it up as an Ethernet Device, which is good. I tried installing the drivers with absolutely no joy. I tried manually installing the drivers, forcing the drivers, uninstalling the entire nForce Unified package and re-installing it, all with no joy at all.

So I went out and picked up a 10/100 PCI NIC to use (I'm quite sure there is a special place reserved in Hell for people who charge $20 +tax for a NIC card) until I can get this fixed.

I searched on the DFI-Street forum, and tried a few things there (such as switching from ACPI Uniprocessor PC to Advanced Configuration and Power Interface ACPI (PC), putting in the MAC address manually etc). Searched here and tried a few things (reducing my overclock etc.) all with no joy. I'm absolutely stumped here.

So, does anybody have any suggestions for me? The board is a DFI Ultra Infinity NFII. I'm using the Hellfire 1/21 BIOS, and I'm running a Mobile Barton 2500+. The nForce drivers I'm using are Beta 6.37 and have worked fine up until now (they're actually still working fine . . . Just the onboard NIC died). I'll uninstall these and try the official ones at any rate.

If anybody can help me solve this, it will be appreciated.

 

[deception``]

First of all, there is no such Hellfire 1/21 bios; rather, that is simply a beta bios by DFI themselves. Anyhow, I think the next thing for you to do is a bit of bios swapping. I've never had to do more than a manual MAC address edit, but I think that you may benefit from trying a bios or two. My suggestion would be any one based on the 6/19 bios, such as the Hellfire HKA Rev 2. Please PM me if you need further assistance.

deception``

 

[Oni]

Ok, it must be a Hellfire modded BIOS then. 'cause on bootup it says it was modded by Hellfire (I can take a screenie if you want ).

I'll hunt down the Hellfire HKA Rev 2 and keep you posted

 

[Oni]

Ok. I flashed to the 6/19 8KA BIOS and fiddled a bit more. Got nothing. I went to the nForce 5.10 drivers but got nothing, either.

I have a feeling it's a Windows problem, in all honesty.

Maybe I'm not entering the manual MAC right? That's the number on top of the AGP slot, correct? Do I enter the whole number, or only a bit of it, or what. I seem to remember that the last time I had a problem w/ the NIC not initializing I only put in numbers not letters, so perhaps I'm doing the MAC incorrectly.

Any thoughts?

 

[deception``]

You enter the entire MAC address. However, know that the DFI NF2 motherboard has one Mac address for the NVIDIA lan, and another for the Gigabit lan (assuming you're on the Lanparty Ultra B; if you're on the Infinity then ignore that last comment).

This issue has always been a bit strange to me; I have had a total of 5 DFI NF2 motherboards (two of which are still running) and I have yet to personally encounter this issue. Nonetheless, I know that this has plagued some, so I have tried to stay up a bit as to what can be done with the issue.

You may also want to look at the plain 1/21 beta bios itself. Most likely, you're original bios was a Hellfire bios that included a modded version of the 1/21 romsip; however, the stock original 1/21 bios has often been preferred by those who have come across this issue before. I'd give this one a shot as well if you don't mind a bit of tedious work.

Other things to try which come to mind:

1. Disabling APIC (I think you already did this, however)

2. Bios Swapping

3. Playing with the MAC Addresss

4. 1/21 DFI (non-modded) bios

5. LONG CMOS resets in the amount of 1 HR or more

Please keep me posted on your dilemma; we'll have you up and running eventually

deception``

 

[Oni]

Ok, bit of an update:

I actually got the drivers installed for the device (it now says it's an nVidia Network adaptor . . . or something along those lines) by pointing the Found New Hardware' wizard at the files that the Unified Driver Package extracted. However, Windows still says it can't initialize the device 'cause it can't load drivers.

This leads me to believe (with little doubt) that this is in fact a Windows problem, and not a hardware issue, just like I originally thought. I still can't for the life of me understand why this happened, however. I was humming along fine at the LAN, and then it just crapped out.

su root was there with me, and he was telling me that the network was rather bad, so perhaps something went wrong in that respect. I'll talk to him a bit more and see what he has to say.

All I know is, that it was working fine until I got to the LAN party and plugged into that patch panel.

 

[Kil4Thril]

Win Sock issue. Run the winsock fixer and it will work again- for about 2 days.

 

[Oni]

Well, the NIC isn't dead. It is definately a Windows problem.

I re-enabled the NIC in the BIOS and fired up Knoppix 3.9. Knoppix picked it right up and that's what I'm using right now to post this.

So I guess after I format next time the problem will solve itself. I was kinda wanting to format anyways . . . The system was getting a little flakey.