What is going on with MAC address?? Help!

[runzwithsizorz]

Our home network system seems to be working fine except...

We have 4 computers on our home network. The only computer affected is my Asus ROG laptop. This started last night in the middle of a game; game froze and a BOD appeared, then ASUS logo and the following:

"Intel UNDI , PX-E 2,1 Build 2.1 (Build 082)"
Copy Intel Corp
Then a long string of numbers (which I copied down), GUID (More numbers/letters), DHCP ..........
This morning I started the computer and the same thing happened before the computer opened windows.
What is causing this and how do I fix it????

Wife of Runz

[skyking]

PX-E boot agent. Somehow a bios setting got randomly changed, very weird.
Boot it up again and disable the network boot option in the bios.

[runzwithsizorz]

Could this indicate a hardware/hard disk failure?

[Fardringle]

Possibly a BIOS battery failure, but it wouldn't have anything to do with your hard disk.

[runzwithsizorz]

I disabled the PX-E in the bios. On restart I lost half the icons on the desktop, including four folders for the game Oblivian and mods.

[runzwithsizorz]

Don't know if this is the right forum. I went into the bios again and enabled the PXE and all the Oblivian files and folders reappeared. As far as I know, Oblivian has no invasive DRM scheme.

[skyking]

You need to post this in "the twilight zone"

[JackMDS]

What you see is nothing to do with the Network per-se

This Boot comes when the Boot on the HD is Quirky/Bad

Option 1. Something wrong with the BIOS.


Option 2. Your are drive is dying/corrupted.

[dawks]

Originally Posted by JackMDS

What you see is nothing to do with the Network per-se

This Boot comes when the Boot on the HD is Quirky/Bad

Option 1. Something wrong with the BIOS.


Option 2. Your are drive is dying/corrupted.

This is it, your harddrive is dying/corrupted. Your system crashed because of a problem with the harddisk, and when you rebooted, the BIOS was un-able to find the harddrive, and/or the OS boot sector on it, so it went through its standard boot menu which looks like it includes PXE booting (this allows your system to boot an operating system thats loaded on a file share of a server).
I'd back up all the files and replace the drive sooner than later.
Grab an SSD if you can and image the drive across. I just did this with Acronis True Image (great program, auto sizes partitions and makes them bootable). SSD's make such a huge difference, especially compared to normal slow ass laptop drives.

[imagoon]

Originally Posted by dawks

This is it, your harddrive is dying/corrupted. Your system crashed because of a problem with the harddisk, and when you rebooted, the BIOS was un-able to find the harddrive, and/or the OS boot sector on it, so it went through its standard boot menu which looks like it includes PXE booting (this allows your system to boot an operating system thats loaded on a file share of a server).
I'd back up all the files and replace the drive sooner than later.
Grab an SSD if you can and image the drive across. I just did this with Acronis True Image (great program, auto sizes partitions and makes them bootable). SSD's make such a huge difference, especially compared to normal slow ass laptop drives.

Just to add on to this:

Your "Icons coming back" after turning PXE being turned back on is more likely caused by windows doing a disk check / recovery during the reboot than PXE itself. If you don't network boot, PXE will have no effect on the HDD as the firmware code won't even load if it is not a boot device.

[runzwithsizorz]

Thanks for the help. I will back up ASAP. The odd thing is I only used this laptop for games, not everyday use. Also, one other question. After backup (to an external hard drive) would scan disk/file ck help or is the HD hopelessly corrupt? I never heard clicking noises or any other indication that the HD was failing...just suddenly that PXE message appeared.

Wife of Runz

[imagoon]

Depends on what is failing. If the disk itself is good and the filesystem / disk structures are messed up then a check should clear it up, a worse case of a restore. If the disk is hosed them no it won't fix it.

[dawks]

Originally Posted by imagoon

Depends on what is failing. If the disk itself is good and the filesystem / disk structures are messed up then a check should clear it up, a worse case of a restore. If the disk is hosed them no it won't fix it.

Yup, the file system can be corrupted, which a chkdsk can fix since its just a software problem.
But other issues are hardware related which means the drive is on its way out. Physical sectors on a disk can go bad (bits just can't be stored properly on the platters). Running a program like spinrite can help the drive determine where bad sectors are, and the drive can then 'check them out' of service, and bring spare sectors online.
Other hardware issues can be problems with the drive heads. And finally the drive motor itself.
Drives can fail for any reason (heat, over-use, under-use (dormant), vibration, etc) its more an art than a science of predicting when/why.

[runzwithsizorz]

Just an update. Backed up the computer, ran scn dsk/chkdsk and no problems, no bad sectors found. No weird noises...nada. The computer is now booting normally into Windows. I guess it's wait and see. Thanks for the help.

Wife of Runz

[mammador]

A MAC address is fixed and only really is a "name" of a given NIC.

It could be that the firmware for the NIC is bad (in its EPROM or similar item).

[Emulex]

Did you buy this from someone? I recall folks were loading SLIC2.1 tables on intel nic bios to pretend to be OEM. Removal of the card, or disabling the bios would cause the o/s to become "not-genuine" or "not activated" which can affect functionality