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Unable to achieve 100Mbps with my integrated NIC

I

imported_R0N1N

Junior Member
First off, I'm using a Gigabyte MA790X-UD4P motherboard. I did a fresh install of xp and was able to use the NIC at 100Mbps on my LAN just fine. After installing the rest of the available windows updates post service pack 3 I noticed I was unable to retain an ip from my router.

The network connection would say "network cable unplugged" and then "acquiring network address" and repeat this in an infinite loop with about a 3 second delay between errors. I did some digging on google and someone said to try setting the Speed & Duplex setting to 10Mbps Full Duplex.

While this did work I'm unable to transfer large files at an acceptable speed over my LAN. I've downloaded every driver release available for the NIC and all of them do the same thing. I've also uninstalled and reinstalled the device multiple times and have also updated the bios to the latest version and no change has occured.

I figure one of the later post sp3 updates had something to do with it but I'm unsure where to start. I think I might end up buying a $20 pci NIC to bypass the integrated NIC as a workaround if I can't come up with a solution.
 
Originally posted by: R0N1N
I figure one of the later post sp3 updates had something to do with it but I'm unsure where to start. I think I might end up buying a $20 pci NIC to bypass the integrated NIC as a workaround if I can't come up with a solution.
Click to expand...
If you are sure that it happened after SP3 was applied, why not just restore back to there and install the later updates one by one? There shouldn't be too many after that date.

 
Thank you for the responses. I tried more than one cable and the same thing happened with both. I ended up digging out a NIC from my old pc and everything works fine now.

Originally posted by: Athena

If you are sure that it happened after SP3 was applied, why not just restore back to there and install the later updates one by one? There shouldn't be too many after that date.
Click to expand...

I appreciate the suggestion. The problems I tend to get tend to be very uncommon. I figured this would be an easier workaround for the time being. I appreciate everyone's help.
 
What is your router/switch? Did you try rebooting it? If not, shut the router or switch off for a minuite or so and restart it. If that was the cause, you'll get the speed back but it's usually a sign of aging so it's likely happen again sooner or later.
 
I'm using a WRT54GL router. I have another pc hooked up to it which is able to transfer at 100Mbps. I didn't try rebooting it simply because the other pc had no problems.
 
Originally posted by: R0N1N
I figure one of the later post sp3 updates had something to do with it but I'm unsure where to start. I think I might end up buying a $20 pci NIC to bypass the integrated NIC as a workaround if I can't come up with a solution.
Click to expand...

[edit]Nevermind, it's a Realtek LAN, I think since Asus aquired Atheros they'd be the only vendor using Atheros/Attansic,still the issue may be bios related and affecting more than that one brand--easy enough to try--compare the windows assigned MAC with the one the BIOS assigns, if they are different then this is the same issue, if they are the same, don't read further[/edit]. If so, what's the MAC Address that windows is assigning it?

I have a prob w/ an ASUS board and it appears as though there is a driver issue with IPV6 that causes the MAC address to be incorrectly set. Manually entering the MAC addr into the Windows Driver settings fixes the problem.

Symptoms are mostly the same as yours, which is why I'm asking. That said, the drivers are still buggy, sometimes the card isn't initialized properly on startup and I have to disable/re-enable it. But after the MAC fix it works about 99% of time.

Another thing to test it out is to boot Ubuntu or another non-windows OS. The problem was only an issue in Windows in my testing, and as others on the net reported. It took me a while to find the above workaround because searching on the symptoms revealed a lot of 'bad cable' / 'bad nic' type suggestions.
 
@dman

Taking your suggestion in hand. I wrote down the MAC address in windows and then rebooted to get into the bios. I was not able to find any kind of MAC address listing for hardware in the bios.

I did however re enable the integrated NIC and replugged the ethernet cable back into it and booted back to windows. I then tried upping the duplex setting to auto negotiate and it was able to retain an ip from the router successfully.

My guess is that your line of thinking was probably correct. Perhaps disabling the integrated NIC and then booting to windows and then going back to bios and re enabling it somehow fixed a MAC address conflict as I had not tried re enabling it in the bios since putting in the pci NIC.

Well now to hope that the problem is fixed for good. At least I was able to rely on a temporary workaround until a solution was found.

I once again want to extend my appreciation for any and all advice given by the posters in this thread. Thanks.
 
Some options to find the MAC:
1) If you enable the bios option to boot from lan and set that in the boot order to go first, it should pause at that screen and show the MAC Address there.
2) Alternatively, while it's working, you could go into windows and do an IPConfig and see what it is, and then compare against the MAC again when it stops working (I'm pretty sure it will stop again).
3) Alternatively, you could boot into Linux (UBUNTU Live CD) and get the MAC address there. I think it's found in 'ifconfig' if not elsewhere.

The issue, at a high level, seems to be that Windows / Driver / Bios is causing the "DHCPv6 Client DUID" address to become the Physical Address. Basically the last 6 hex-pairs of the DUID become the MAC and it breaks the network connectivity. The problem occurs in XP, Vista, and Win7 but not in Linux or in other OS, at least not for me, so I'm not sure if it's a driver or BIOS issue but I do know that manually entering the Correct MAC/Physical Address fixed it for me long term.

There were other workarounds out there, as you have possibly discovered one, by disabling / enabling. However, those did not work for me on reboot the problem would return. The only longer term fix was the manual entry of the correct MAC/Physical Address.

Anyway, glad it's semi-working for you too.

[edit] BTW, I am currently using a WRT54GS router , with DD-WRT, so could also be a DD-WRT related issue, however I do not believe that to be the case because when I was having problems I also tried with other / older routers (netgear, dlink) and it didn't resolve the connectivity problem. Nor did manually entering in the Static IP info.

Also, I believe that one of the windows updates did impact the situation, as I was not having problems either in XP until a Windows Update was performed.

If you do a google/other search on "ED-9F-E9-D7-F7-F7" (=the bad MAC getting assigned) you should come across a few threads about the ASUS/Attansic boards having the problem. I don't know if the Gigabyte board has that same 'wrong' mac but may shed some light on things. Each nic should have a unique MAC but you'll see that multiple folks have that same MAC in the threads. Again, I know that it's coming from a DHCPv6 Client DUID getting cropped, but that's where my sleuthing ends. [/edit]

 
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