- Nov 14, 2000
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- 6
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i thought this might be a thread for either the Motherboard Forum of the Networking Forum, but i though i'd start here, and if the thread needs to be towed somewhere else that's fine...
so like the title says, my network adapter suddenly went missing from the device manager under Windows 7 x64. here's the evolution of the problem from start to finish (i'll do my best to make a long story short). yesterday after work, i shut down one of my dual GPU machines to swap out an HD 7950 for an HD 7970 (the other GPU is a 7970, so i'm upgrading to dual 7970's). everything started up fine at first, but then i shut down again to throw to BIOS switch on one of the 7970s, and my system froze just as the Windows desktop started to appear. i switched the GPU's BIOS switch back to where it was before the freeze, and everything started normally again. i then restarted again and tried the BIOS switch on the other GPU, only to get a system freeze again just as the Windows desktop starts to appear. again i put the switch back in its original position, and the system started up just fine. by the way, it is interesting to note that one of the GPU's switches is in position 1, while the other's is int position 2...its almost as though the stock BIOS doesn't work on one GPU, and the OC Boost BIOS doesn't work on the other...but i digress. i also wasn't crazy about my GPU temps while crunching, so i shut it down again and swapped slots (i put the lower card above, and the upper card below), and that also caused the system to freeze just before getting to Windows.
meanwhile, after resetting the machine just after it froze, a message box saying something about the BIOS would pop up during POST (i don't remember what it said...possibly something about BIOS corruption), and the system would then either freeze, or render the keyboard unusable. i'm suggesting both possibilities b/c after having entered the BIOS, my keyboard wouldn't work, yet i could see the real time clock ticking away, so i know the system wasn't frozen at that point. i finally got around the constant keyboard failure by unplugging it from the KVM switch and plugging it directly into my dual 7970 machine. this only allowed the keyboard to work intermittently while in the BIOS, leading me to think that this might in fact be a corrupt BIOS problem.
the other issue is of course the fact that my network adapter has disappeared from my device manager in Windows altogether, and i can't get online. now i know i didn't physically do anything to damage the onboard NIC chip, either while adding/removing a GPU or otherwise...and i made sure that the onboard NIC was enabled in the BIOS. does anyone here think that a corrupt BIOS might be responsible for Windows' failure to recognize any networking hardware, particularly an integrated NIC? i'm currently running an up to date BIOS, but i figured i could just flash right over it w/ the same BIOS, and that it would overwrite the corrupt BIOS (if that's in fact what i have)...what do you all think?
TIA,
Eric
so like the title says, my network adapter suddenly went missing from the device manager under Windows 7 x64. here's the evolution of the problem from start to finish (i'll do my best to make a long story short). yesterday after work, i shut down one of my dual GPU machines to swap out an HD 7950 for an HD 7970 (the other GPU is a 7970, so i'm upgrading to dual 7970's). everything started up fine at first, but then i shut down again to throw to BIOS switch on one of the 7970s, and my system froze just as the Windows desktop started to appear. i switched the GPU's BIOS switch back to where it was before the freeze, and everything started normally again. i then restarted again and tried the BIOS switch on the other GPU, only to get a system freeze again just as the Windows desktop starts to appear. again i put the switch back in its original position, and the system started up just fine. by the way, it is interesting to note that one of the GPU's switches is in position 1, while the other's is int position 2...its almost as though the stock BIOS doesn't work on one GPU, and the OC Boost BIOS doesn't work on the other...but i digress. i also wasn't crazy about my GPU temps while crunching, so i shut it down again and swapped slots (i put the lower card above, and the upper card below), and that also caused the system to freeze just before getting to Windows.
meanwhile, after resetting the machine just after it froze, a message box saying something about the BIOS would pop up during POST (i don't remember what it said...possibly something about BIOS corruption), and the system would then either freeze, or render the keyboard unusable. i'm suggesting both possibilities b/c after having entered the BIOS, my keyboard wouldn't work, yet i could see the real time clock ticking away, so i know the system wasn't frozen at that point. i finally got around the constant keyboard failure by unplugging it from the KVM switch and plugging it directly into my dual 7970 machine. this only allowed the keyboard to work intermittently while in the BIOS, leading me to think that this might in fact be a corrupt BIOS problem.
the other issue is of course the fact that my network adapter has disappeared from my device manager in Windows altogether, and i can't get online. now i know i didn't physically do anything to damage the onboard NIC chip, either while adding/removing a GPU or otherwise...and i made sure that the onboard NIC was enabled in the BIOS. does anyone here think that a corrupt BIOS might be responsible for Windows' failure to recognize any networking hardware, particularly an integrated NIC? i'm currently running an up to date BIOS, but i figured i could just flash right over it w/ the same BIOS, and that it would overwrite the corrupt BIOS (if that's in fact what i have)...what do you all think?
TIA,
Eric
