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Is my onboard LAN fried? -- Help a Gurl out...

A

aznsurfer

Member
Hi guys,

I'll try to get to the point. I have Soyo Dragon Plus board with onboard LAN and Sound. Everything is running smoothly yesterday until I inadvertantly unplugged the PC while it was on!!! (not even gonna go into detail)

Well when I restarted the PC I lost Internet and Networking capablilities:

- my Local Area Network icon says that the cable has been unplugged, though it is still plugged in.
- My ethernet plug on the PC is blinking as it does not recognize the cable already plugged in it.
- Checking all connections, wiggling plugs and switching to a cable from another PC doesn't help.
- checked router, all is well since another PC hooked to it is surfing the net fine.
- uninstalled and reinstalled network device driver does not solve the problem even though device is supposedly working fine.

So I deduced that my Ethernet "plug" is somewhat fried though the built-in LAN card is fine. Could I have damaged it when unplugging the PC while it was on?
I figured I may have to just get a seperate PCI LAN card.

What do you guys think I should do?

Reinstall my OS? (eww)
Keep messing with the drivers?

I am at a lost 🙁

Please help a girl out

Thank You so much!!!!

🙂
 
you can always try reinstalling the os and fiddling with drivers...

check and see if the cable is still good as well
 
You might have accidentally blinked out the "LAN enabled" in the BIOS. Unorthodox, I know - but I've seen it happen. Go into the BIOS setup, check to make sure it's enabled, then double-check your connection settings. Your card might be set to connect at 100MBits full-duplex, and your router might only handle 10MBit. BIOS settings for some reason are jumping out at me though. Check 'em.

- M4H
 
really? my BIOS huh?

"Your card might be set to connect at 100MBits full-duplex, and your router might only handle 10MBit"

I don't understand how this is possible cuz I've been using the same router and cables for the last year.

hmmmm.
 
That happens to me once in awhile. Just uninstall the ethernet drivers and reinstall. That fixes it 50% of the time. The other 50%, a clean windows install and all is fine.

I dont think there's any way to smoke an ethernet card.

Lou
 
Originally posted by: LouPoir
That happens to me once in awhile. Just uninstall the ethernet drivers and reinstall. That fixes it 50% of the time. The other 50%, a clean windows install and all is fine.

I dont think there's any way to smoke an ethernet card.

Lou
Click to expand...

Well since I've done the "uninstall - reinstall drivers" I guess I have no choice but to do a clean OS install and check all my BIOS settings again.

I wanted to clean out my drive anyways I guess.

🙁

 
Originally posted by: LouPoir


I dont think there's any way to smoke an ethernet card.

Lou
Click to expand...

Tell that to the lightning strike that hit my power lines, and fried my ethernet card. Heard the crack outside at the same time I saw a spaek arc trhough my surge protector ( smoked ) through my cable Modem ( smoked ) and into my ethernet card ( smoked ). Thankfully the card was cheap to replace, the modem was under warenty still, and I needed a new surge protector anyway 😛. Also, thanks to the ethernet card for taking the hit rather than the rest of my system 🙂

Oh, and the computer wasn't even ON at the time.. Lightning seems to have one hell of a kick 🙂

Zort!
 
Although possible hardware, Windows drivers would be my first guess....what version of Windows are you running? If you're running XP, use the System Restore function to try and roll-back your system a day or so...

keep us posted 🙂
 
I had my onboard LAN fail on an ECS motherboard after two days of ownership. Stuck a PCI NIC in instead of dealing with RMA. I tried BIOS updates and driver reinstalls, but my OS could not find it. I just did a BIOS upgrade and stepped up from W2K with a fresh install of XP Pro. Believe it or not, the onboard NIC work was detected by XP and works prefectly.
 
Im running Win2K

whats a girl to do eh? I'm gonna reinstall everything and upgrade the BIOS. So I guess BIOS upgrades should be done even though u don't upgrade to a faster chip eh?

I know you have to upgrade if you want the latest CPU that is compatible with your MB but I guess it's good maintenence to upgrade anyways eh?

What sucks is that now I have to backup all my photos and images that take so much of my drive.

thanks for all your help guys.

🙂 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
There are alternatives...

ie, if you have another HD, do a clean install on there, just to see if the hardware is detected and working...so you know where to start

or you could download a linux-on-cd system like Knoppix, boot off your CD (no install needed, it runs out of RAM), and see if the network is detected...

Just some thoughts to avoid the whole reinstall 🙁
 
Another option if you really want to avoid a reformat, and you're willing to take a chance on $10, is just to buy a new NIC. Hopefully, Windows should install it and run it fine, even if your other one isn't. No guarantees though. 😉
 
Reinstalling your OS should be the last resort.

As MercenaryForHire said, check your BIOS to make sure it is still set for "onboard LAN enabled."

Don't see the need for BIOS upgrade, that can be risky. I just had a bad BIOS flash last week.
 
Agreed about BIOSes. I upgrade mine when I need to fix a problem, update for new hardware, or there has been a drastic increase to system performance.

Otherwise, unless you have a board with Dual BIOS or one of those ASUS boards with the safe-flash features and restore from floppy, then leave it be, too much risk sometimes...

A new NIC is also a perfectly good solution, but if your hardware is bad, it might have killed something else too, so I wouldn't leave it be until you find out ...
 
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