Help with 3com NIC

[DRGrim]

I have a 3com NIC, and I have had problems booting up. The computer hangs at a certen point. I know this happens when you have Plug and Play BIOS enabled, but I don't. I tryed enabling it to see what would happen, but nothing did. Any sugestions? Thanks

 

[kamaboko]

How did you determin that it's your nic?

 

[DRGrim]

I took everything out exept for the graphics and scsi card. It booted up fine. Then I put in the NIC and it hangs. Plus, it is a known problem with the card

 

[perry]

If it's a known issue, then RMA it to 3com or return it from where you bought it, or just get a new one.

 

[DRGrim]

Its a known issue, and to fix it you disable PNP OS. Since it was off, I was asking for sugestions on what the problem might be. If I RMA it, I will get the same type back and thierfore the same problem. Now, any more suggestions?

 

[Fathom4]

Did you try moving the NIC to a different slot? I've found sometimes for no damn good reason it make's a difference.

 

[DRGrim]

Fathom4, just got new motherboard. The problem wwas there with the old, its there with the new. Does this count as a different slot?

 

[Fathom4]

I'd still try moving it to a different slot on the board. It may be the sequence the drivers are loading for the slots. Try another card also, it could just be a bad NIC.

 

[GT1999]

As others have said, make sure you have it in a busmastering (sp?) PCI slot ..

 

[SharkB8]

I just had cable service put in and installed a 3Com 905C NIC in my system for this. I had the same problem you did. How long are you waiting for your system to boot up? I kept rebooting only to have the same "problem". I shut my system down, turned it back on and and went to get something to drink. When I came back my system had successfully booted up. I just wasn't waiting long enough. Yes, the NIC did slow down my systems boot up. I don't know why this NIC did this but it did. I did notice that after I hooked up the cable modem to the NIC boot up sped up a little. My theory is that the NIC is searching for a network and if there isn't anything plugged in, it has to "time out" to continue booting up.
I have changed the PCI slot the NIC was in with no improvement in boot time. I still have a problem with my NIC sharing an IRQ with my sound card but this hasn't had any ill effects on my system at all. I know your NIC is not supposed to share with anything but I haven't figured out how to fix this yet. The IRQ sharing thing very well may be what is causing my slow boot up but so far Windows has been able to sort it out.

Try waiting a little longer and see what happens.

 

[hatboy]

A really slow bootup after installing a nic usually happens because Windows binds the TCP/IP protocol to the nic by default. Also by default, TCP/IP gets set to obtain an IP by DHCP. If you're not on a network with a DHCP server, it takes a really long time out. To avoid this problem, either remove the instance of the TCP/IP protocol that's bound to the nic in your network configuration, or assign it an IP.

 

[DRGrim]

I tried moving it to a different slot, and nothing happened. I think I'm having the same problem as SharkB8, but my computer's attached to a network. So, the only option is to live with it? Darn

 

[SharkB8]

DRGrim-
How are you connected to the network? Is it via a hub, switch, or router? What type of ISP are you on? I am just asking in reference to hatboy's post because I have a Netgear RT314 router coming so I can network my systems to my cable hookup. I am just wondering if the router will take care of my DHCP connect and allow my system to boot a bit faster.
Yes, the slow boot is a pain in the a** but overall I am happy with the my cable service and this NIC. It has a nice diagnostic utility that came with it and it seems to work well. Inspite of this I too have fallen victim to becoming impatient the faster computers get.😀

 

[DRGrim]

SharkB8, I have 2 computers and a Linksys router hooked up to a hub. My ISP is AT&T Roadrunner. My router is a DHCP server, so thats no the problem ether. Thanks