Cable Modem Disconnects when XP Boots

[Hadsus]

This is a new home PC loaded with XP with a 3 Ghz processor, Radeon 9800 Pro, 1 gig memory, and Asus P4C800 875p motherboard. My Motorola Surfboard 4100 cable modem worked fine in my old Win 98SE system. But, connected to my new one (directly into the motherboard via Ethernet connection), it disconnects (actually, activity light goes off) whenever XP boots up. I'm able to reestablish connection simply by unplugging the modem power cord for a few seconds and plugging it back in.

It's not a bad motherboard.....I know because it's my second motherboard (the first one failed after a few hours of use) and the problem occurred in both. The vendor who build the machine is not seeing this problem at his shop (he took a look when he replaced the motherboard) with his cable modem.

Charter Pipeline (my net provider) has re-registered the modem but still no luck. I checked my settings and made sure in IE that the box 'automatically detect settings' (I think that's the name of the box) is checked.

This is my first XP system so I'm kinda lost when it comes to things to look for......not to mention that I am not much of a networking expert. Any ideas welcome.

 

[azev]

Which light are you talking about ? If it is the activity light, it is normal because your computer is rebooting and there are no signal going to and from the cable modem.

When your computer boots up, does the nic card tells you that it is disconnected ?
if not try to renew the ip address from the network properties.

 

[Hadsus]

I've watched carefully as the machine boots up......the activity light blinks right to the point where the XP progress bar comes on the screen, then the light goes out completely. After the machine is finished booting, I can't web browse, access mail, newsgroups, etc. Once I remove the modem power plug then replug the modem, the activity light resumes blinking and I can once again access the web, mail, etc. Again, my knowledge of networks is quite poor. I just know that what is happening here is abnormal. I shouldn't have to unplug then plug in the modem every time I boot up the machine.

 

[azev]

of course not, but if all the connectivity light on the modem is on and only your activity light is off, you should be able to connect without having to reboot the modem.

Try this, right click on my network places, and click on the network adapter that you are using for the cable modem. Then click repair this connection left navigation bar on that page.

This will do ipconfig /renew on your adapter and refresh the connection with the modem.

When repair is complete, you should be able to connect.

Goodluck.

 

[Hadsus]

Thanks for the try.....no go. Message was that the connection could not be repaired. So I simply unplugged the modem and plugged it back in and I was back in business. Go figure. I'll give Motorola a call. It's got to be something simple that I'm overlooking.