Win XP - Hardware (NIC) Install Problem

[Auxon]

Alrighty, this problem has been bugging me for the past week or so. I have a Realtek RTL8139 Family NIC. I have previously installed this in XP machines and it ran great, it was identified properly by the OS and had no problems installing it.

Recently, I moved the card from one PCI slot to another and for some reason (beyond me) now the card will no longer identify correctly with Windows. Instead of being found as the Realtek card, it comes up in Device Manager as "Ethernet Controller," which it is naturally, but this does not let me then install the proper drivers for it. I've tried swapping it back into the old PCI slot that I took it out from, no luck.

I'm stuck guys, any suggestions? Thanks

Kevin

 

[Fireman]

This could be an IRQ conflict. Look in the Device Manager under IRQ settings and try changing it to an unused IRQ.

 

[GAZZA]

I found an updated driver Here if that will help you for XP

 

[Auxon]

Thanks guys for the speedy replies but still didn't work. I can't change any interupt settings because, since it can't find the driver, Windows doesn't get as far as assigning resources to the card. Under Resources it states "This device isn't using any resources because it has a problem."

As for trying out new drivers, even newer drivers aren't being loaded as I get an error saying "The specified location does not contain information about your hardware." I think this is the underlying problem as it doesn't detect the device as a Realtek nic, but as a generic Ethernet Controller.

Thanks again,

Kevin

 

[Fireman]

That driver file is an .exe file. You can't load it at start up. You have to boot up and then use the run command or double click on the file to install it. Did you try that?

 

[Swampster]

You mention moving the card to another slot. Why was this done? Did you install something else also?

What motherboard are you using? Many of the better ones (ASUS comes to mind) give you information on which slots are sharing with which other slots, which can be very handy for diagnosing this type of problem.

Lacking this information from the motherboard manual or their site, remove all cards except the video and the NIC. Have the NIC in the slot you originally used. Give that a try and see if it will let you install it correctly. If this gives success, then install the other cards one at a time until everything is happy.