Network Prob -- Tricky one, not for faint of heart! :)

[blahbooboo2]

Hi,

I am going crazy! Please help if you have any ideas

I moved my desktop to Win 2k from NT4 when I bought a new Maxtor 20gig with ATA100card (thanks $36 staples). My desktop is an old K6-233 (I am waiting for another deal to replace MB and chip) with the following:

1 ISA Modem
1 PCI SB Live
1 PCI Video Card (STB Velocity 128)
1 PCI Maxtor ATA 100 Card (just added)
1 PCI Network card (DEC chipset)

With my old network card I can get a link light between my laptop and my desktop, but I can't get either computer to see or acknoledge the others presence. When I run netdiag.exe in win2k I got no information as it did not detect anything (though the network card is installed according to device manager). As a result, I figured I am having a IRQ conflight. I looked closer and it seems that the Video card and the network card keep grabbing the same IRQ. I tried using a linksys card (which I am now doubting if it even works) and Win 2k would halt after the second startup screen if the card is in place. With this information, I figured I had an IRQ conflict for sure and DISABLED all my motherboard IDE channels. The system would still halt in Win2k. If I put back my old network card the machine will startup in Win2k but still not work over the network!

What I also noticed is during the startup the network card and the video card always share the same IRQ(sometimes it is 10 or 9). As well as two other devices typically sharing IRQ 15.

Any ideas (other then get a new AGP based MB)?

Thanks!

blahbooboo2@freeze.com

 

[Spawndude]

I had this same problem. Usually the sound wouldn't work but network connection would. Sometimes neither would work.

No crashes they just wouldn't work

Device manager would not show any conflicts.

Finally moved one (dont remember which) to another slot

 

[Dragonheart]

Move your PCI slots around. Usually the first and second PCI slot share the same IRQ so if you have the video card on PCI don't put any cards in PCI 2. This should help with the IRQ sharing. As for your network are you sure you have your IP addresses and workgroup or domain name set up correctly.

 

[blahbooboo2]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I got it working by re-formating the drive, re-installing win2k with the new linksys card. For some reason this worked. I guess my old PCI ethernet card is not win2k compatible.

What is really weird is that it took a complete new re-installation to get the Linksys card to work correctly!! Gotta love MS...