most illogical network problems

[netwerkboi]

Greetings:

Here's my problem. I have an ISDN line running to a Netgear RH340 router, which in turn is connected to 3 computers (2 WIN98/ 1 win95) with CATV UTP cable.

One of the WIN98 computers works fine. It's using an Intel EtherExpress 16 NIC to access the router. The other two computers can't see the router or ISDN line at all. Both of them are using recently purchased SMC EZNet PCI cards. Their problems are:

Computer #1<win95 system>: I've repeatedly uninstalled and reinstalled all networking protocols and adapters, including the NIC, and redone all the bindings. Even after all this the system CAN'T PING ANYTHING, and CAN'T RUN WINIPCFG.exe. This is very unsettling, as every time I try to ping the router (or even loopback, 127.0.0.1) I get an &quot;error 10091&quot;. The Netgear software, when installed on this computer, says the system has no IP address, even after multiple reboots and re-installation of all networking-related stuff. What could this POSSIBLY be?

Computer #2<win98 system>: This one is even more infuriating. I install the SMC EZNet NIC, and get nothing. No &quot;new hardware found&quot; no hardware install wizard, no NOTHING. The computer acts as if the two different PCI slots I've tried placing the NIC card in are both dead. Furthermore, there is no link light on the NIC even when I connect it via CatV cable to the router. Surprisingly, the ROUTER shows a link light for this system's slot. IOW, I'm getting a 1-way link light: the router thinks there's a NIC card plugged into it, and the NIC card disagrees.

Any help at all would be most appreciated as I am approaching a point of ritual suicide over these incredibly illogical problems.

Thanks so much in advance,
netwerkboi

 

[Scarpozzi]

This sounds like those cards may have some bad drivers or may be bad themselves. When you can't run WINIPCFG on PC 1, that tells me that TCP/IP isn't finding the hardware (or can't talk to it). On PC 2, you aren't able to even detect the card. I would take both of these cards back and get your money back if you can. I recommend Netgear cards or Kingston's (in Win98). Another trick is to uninstall ALL your protocols and adapters completly and reboot. Then add them back. You'll get some messages when you remove them that says your network isn't complete, but just agree that you want to continue and reboot. This will clear out the system. Then try to reinstall everything. SMC makes good cards, but they sometimes outsource on the chipsets and it causes the quality to be really poor. You might have just gotten a bad batch of them. Good luck.