Weird problem with the onboard LAN of my Soltek NForce3 250 board

[Imyourzero]

OK here's the deal...I have a home network set up with a Netgear wireless router which my PC is connected to, and another computer that I put a Netgear wireless G card in to prevent having to run the CAT5. Well, the Netgear wireless card had some weird issue that caused the other computer to lock up randomly while surfing the net (tried it in 2 computers--same thing) so I took out the wireless card and just threw in a 10/100 Linksys NIC and ran the CAT5 through the floor.

After getting that 2nd computer up and running, I come back into my room and see a message that "a network cable has been unplugged" and of course I can't access the internet. So I double check all of the cables and they are fine. Then I restart the computer, reboot the cable modem and the router, and still no internet. WTF...I then tried deleting the onboard LAN from Device Manager, restarting, and letting Windows reinstall the driver. It does, but I'm still getting a message that a network cable has been unplugged.

So I look at the light on the NIC to see what it's doing and it was repeatedly blinking orange in roughly one second intervals. In addition, every time it would blink, there would be indication of this on the desktop...my mouse pointer would briefly show the hourglass at the same rate that the NIC was blinking. After fooling around with it for a while I just got frustrated, disabled the onboard LAN in the BIOS, and tossed the Linksys 10/100 NIC from the other computer into mine. Boom, works flawlessly.

Basically I just want to know if my onboard LAN just happened to take a dump all of a sudden (mobo is roughly 2 weeks old) or if there could be something else that caused it. I'd like to be able to use my onboard LAN again so that I can put the Linksys back in the other computer, but if it turns out that the onboard LAN went bad I'm not going to RMA the board. I'd rather throw a $10 NIC in there than fool with the hassle and expense of taking the board out, shipping it off, and waiting for another one. It's just not worth it IMO.

Do you think this is a hardware or software issue? The weird thing is that NOTHING changed; I wasn't even using the computer at the time that the message popped up. I was surfing the net, then I left the room to install the Linksys NIC in the other computer, then I came back to my room and I had that message and couldn't access the internet.

TIA for any help.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Nforce 3 onboard LAN has known issues w/ older Linksys hardware / routers I'd suggest just tossing a cheap NIC in your system or replacing the linksys router w/ something else and seeing if this resolves your issue.

 

[Imyourzero]

Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
Nforce 3 onboard LAN has known issues w/ older Linksys hardware / routers I'd suggest just tossing a cheap NIC in your system or replacing the linksys router w/ something else and seeing if this resolves your issue.

Geez, sorry I had a brain fart. It is a Netgear wireless router and wireless card I'm using, not Linksys. The only Linksys product in the equation is the 10/100 NIC (but it works fine in both computers so it's not a consideration).

With that said, any more thoughts? It's a Netgear router and wireless G card...D'oh!

 

[Arcanedeath]

Hrm not really sure but I'd hazard a guess that your onboard lan failed, although it could just be a compatiblity issue with your router, I've heard that Nforce 3 NIC's have issues w/ alot of older hardware not just Linksys, (although that being said my little bro's K8N-E's NIC is working fine w/ my 4 or 5 year old 8 port linksys router) also I would suggest trying a different network cable and specifying 100mbit full or half duplex in the onboard NIC's driver instead of auto negotation to see if that resolves the issue. I have some Intel Pro 100S's that don't run full duplex unless you force it in the driver w/ my router. In anyevent hope this helps...

 

[Imyourzero]

OK, thanks for your suggestions. I think the network cable is fine because like I said, I disabled the onboard LAN and installed a Linksys 10/100 NIC (that's the only thing that changed) and was able to access the internet just fine with that NIC. I might just leave it in and not worry about it; it seems to load sites faster than the onboard LAN anyway. It just sucks to not know what happened, but maybe it was a service pack issue or something. It's just weird that I had been using the onboard LAN without issue for nearly 2 weeks and all of a sudden it just drops the connection and won't re-establish it...

 

[CraigRT]

Hm, thanks for responding to the PM Rob...

My issue is not the same as yours!

I have yet to even use my onboard LAN, every-time I try to install the drivers, it has a yellow exclamation mark in device manager and will not initialize the NIC.

my old Soltek SL-75FRN2-L onboard LAN worked wonderfully, this board, no such luck.

And also like you, I put in a 3COM NIC and it works just fine, so everything else is fine, it's just the onboard LAN itself. Weird.

 

[Android8675]

Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
I've heard that Nforce 3 NIC's have issues w/ alot of older hardware not just Linksys

Thanks for this answer, been searching around the web all morning trying to figure out why my new DFI Lanparty's (the one with nForce3 250gb) LAN connection just wouldn't work this morning.

Using an old LinkSys router BFESR41 or whatever and the system just doesn't pick up an IP address from the router. Any suggestions? If possible I'd love to avoid buying a new router or anything for that matter. I guess slapping in an old network card is one solution, but I like the idea of a hardware firewall and all those other goodies built into the chipset.

The lan connection worked last night (just after throwing the system together), but this morning I can't get the system to pick up the IP from the DHCP at all.

Thankfully you don't need LAN to do benchmarking and play around with my new system. (First AMD64 3000+, upgrade from an XP 1800+)