Nic not receiving packets

[salthi]

I'm in the process of building a new machine based around MSI's K9N2GM-FD motherboard and have run into a bit of a setback. I?m having trouble establishing a network connection and have been able to trace the problem back to the NIC either not receiving packets or receiving and ignoring them. The machine is running windows 2008(although I?ve tried vista and experienced the same problem), and I?m using the onboard LAN with a known good Ethernet cable and switch. The lights on the NIC and switch light up and show activity but, under the local area connection status screen it shows a number of bytes sent and none received and I am unable to ping other network PCs. So far I?ve gone through the traditional network troubleshooting steps, using both a static and a dynamic IP, different NIC drivers, and even reinstalling the OS.

I?ve also done a great deal of googling in an effort to fix this problem and have come across a few forum posts that describe how to fix your NIC if it goes into its power saving mode. I followed these steps and unplugged the power from my PC for several minutes. When I booted the PC back up I did have network connectivity but this only lasted for a few minutes until windows stopped receiving packets again. It seems that the NIC went back to sleep on its own. I disabled the power saver function of the NIC under its device properties in windows and shutdown again, unplugged my PC and powered back up. The network came up again but went down a few minutes later. At this point it seems that the problem is related to the NIC?s power saving mode (or possibly a different problem that has the same fix), but for whatever reason changing the NIC?s power settings in windows don?t seem to have an effect and the BIOS offers no options in this area.

I have literally been working on this problem for the last 2 days and I?m quickly running out of ideas, I?m hoping that someone else out there has experienced this problem and somehow fixed it. At this point I?m about to RMA the board unless I can figure out a fix or workaround. Any ideas?

 

[Crusty]

http://www.wireshark.org/

Run that on the PC, it'll let you know if you are or are not receiving packets.

 

[salthi]

Using wireshark I can see arp and DHCP packets flying back and forth from my other networked PCs. Now the question is why is windows ignoring them?

Just noticed that with wireshark running the windows received packet count actually goes up unlike before.

 

[salthi]

After some more investigation it seems that other PCs aren't recieving packets from my new machine. Wireshark shows the data as being broadcast from the troubled PC but after installing wireshark on my other machines I can see that the data never arrives at it's destination.

 

[RebateMonger]

Have you tried a separate PCI NIC card? NVidia NICs have had a lot of weird problems over the years. Also, they had some sort of firewall product that came with the motherboards. Obviouisly, I'd temporarily turn off (or remove) any firewall on the PC during troubleshooting.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: salthi
After some more investigation it seems that other PCs aren't recieving packets from my new machine. Wireshark shows the data as being broadcast from the troubled PC but after installing wireshark on my other machines I can see that the data never arrives at it's destination.

What are your network settings for the mentioned computers? IP/netmask/gateway etc.

 

[salthi]

I'm going to try a seperate NIC later tonight, and I'm sure their's no firewall on the PC or on the other PCs in the network.

As far as network settings go I don't beleive that this is the issue, I have tryed both dhcp(which works on every other PC on my network) and static addresses. From wireshark on the computer I can see the dhcp request broadcast to my network but that request is never recieved.

I'm pretty sure at this point that I'm looking at a defective NIC.

 

[salthi]

Just to let you guys know I gave up on this motherboard, it is being RMA'd.