I have 3 systems here in a LAN, all are connected to a 4-Port SMC Barricade router for cable-modem sharing. All systems have D-Link DFE-530TX+ NICs. The LAN is fine, the net works great, but I have this INCREDIBLY perplexing problem with one of the systems:
I use Norton Ghost to make occassional system images over the LAN - this complements a regular back-up routine. Two of the systems will boot perfectly with a DFE-530TX+ Ghost boot disk, but when I boot on the other system PC-DOS (used by Ghost) insists vehemently that there isn't a NIC installed. This isn't confined to just PC-DOS either, when I attempted a Novell NetWare 5.1 installation on the machine it too insisted that no NIC was installed. I even went so far as to force-feed the Novell installation program with the Slot and MAC address for the card along with the very latest D-Link drivers. Nothing.
When I boot the system, the configuration screen that is displayed after the POST routine clearly lists the Ethernet adapter. If I install Windows 2000 Server, it recognises the card, asks for the driver disk, and away we go with everything working perfectly. Therefore the NIC itself is not faulty (I have a spare which I have tried too, same problems).
Thinking that this might be an IRQ issue that 2000 Server can cope with, but which fools PC-DOS and the NetWare installation program, I disabled COM 1 in CMOS and set the NIC to use IRQ 4. Still not recognised. I have tried IRQ 3, 7, 10, 11, and 15. Nothing. Knowing that the NIC requires a bus-mastering PCI slot, I have also tried it in each of the 5 slots on the motherboard. I did this with each combination of IRQs listed above. Nothing. I have disabled the "Plug and Play OS" option in CMOS. Nothing.
The other strange symptom is that, even with the PC powered down, the light on the router indicates that this particular system is still connected. As soon as the power cord is removed from the back of the system, the light goes out. Neither of the other systems with this NIC exhibit the same behaviour, the link light goes out as soon as the PC switches off.
For the record, the 2 systems that work fine have F1C AZ11 and Asus A7V-133 motherboards. The system with PC-DOS/NetWare 5.1 problems has a GigaByte GA-7ZX board. All have the latest BIOS release. The systems with the A7V-133 and GA-7ZX have otherwise identical hardware configurations.
This is doing my head in!! I need to install NetWare for my Network+ studies, and this is preventing me from doing it on the designated machine. It defies logic in that the card is recognised by the motherboard, recognised by Windows 2000 Server, but cannot be recognised by a PC-DOS configuration that works fine with the exact same card on 2 other machines. I also don't understand the link light issue, and it's this that leads me to think that this is motherboard related.
Any help will be VERY gratefully received!!
(Also posted on Tom's Hardware)
I use Norton Ghost to make occassional system images over the LAN - this complements a regular back-up routine. Two of the systems will boot perfectly with a DFE-530TX+ Ghost boot disk, but when I boot on the other system PC-DOS (used by Ghost) insists vehemently that there isn't a NIC installed. This isn't confined to just PC-DOS either, when I attempted a Novell NetWare 5.1 installation on the machine it too insisted that no NIC was installed. I even went so far as to force-feed the Novell installation program with the Slot and MAC address for the card along with the very latest D-Link drivers. Nothing.
When I boot the system, the configuration screen that is displayed after the POST routine clearly lists the Ethernet adapter. If I install Windows 2000 Server, it recognises the card, asks for the driver disk, and away we go with everything working perfectly. Therefore the NIC itself is not faulty (I have a spare which I have tried too, same problems).
Thinking that this might be an IRQ issue that 2000 Server can cope with, but which fools PC-DOS and the NetWare installation program, I disabled COM 1 in CMOS and set the NIC to use IRQ 4. Still not recognised. I have tried IRQ 3, 7, 10, 11, and 15. Nothing. Knowing that the NIC requires a bus-mastering PCI slot, I have also tried it in each of the 5 slots on the motherboard. I did this with each combination of IRQs listed above. Nothing. I have disabled the "Plug and Play OS" option in CMOS. Nothing.
The other strange symptom is that, even with the PC powered down, the light on the router indicates that this particular system is still connected. As soon as the power cord is removed from the back of the system, the light goes out. Neither of the other systems with this NIC exhibit the same behaviour, the link light goes out as soon as the PC switches off.
For the record, the 2 systems that work fine have F1C AZ11 and Asus A7V-133 motherboards. The system with PC-DOS/NetWare 5.1 problems has a GigaByte GA-7ZX board. All have the latest BIOS release. The systems with the A7V-133 and GA-7ZX have otherwise identical hardware configurations.
This is doing my head in!! I need to install NetWare for my Network+ studies, and this is preventing me from doing it on the designated machine. It defies logic in that the card is recognised by the motherboard, recognised by Windows 2000 Server, but cannot be recognised by a PC-DOS configuration that works fine with the exact same card on 2 other machines. I also don't understand the link light issue, and it's this that leads me to think that this is motherboard related.
Any help will be VERY gratefully received!!
(Also posted on Tom's Hardware)
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