Network connection problem

[Peter Stahl]

I took my wireless card out of my PC and put the Ethernet card back in but it won't work. I have a cable modem with a router connected. The PC I'm writing this with is using the router. When I plug the cable in the lights come on like it's getting a signal but if I go to Network Connections it says Network Cable Unplugged. PC is a Pentium 4 with a intel pro/100 ve Ethernet card running Windows XP. Any help would be appreciated. I would think this would be a easy hook up but I guess not.

thanks, Pete

[Jim Becker]

Try removing the card from the hardware setup in Control Panel and rebooting, letting Winders "re-discover" the NIC.

[Peter Stahl]

Try removing the card from the hardware setup in Control Panel and rebooting, letting Winders "re-discover" the NIC.

Jim,

I uninstalled it, rebooted, It reinstalled it, rebooted, still have the dreaded red X.

[John Gregory]

You can try a different ethernet cable that you know is good.
You can download the latest drivers from the vendor.

Just a couple of thoughts

[Peter Stahl]

You can try a different ethernet cable that you know is good.
You can download the latest drivers from the vendor.

Just a couple of thoughts

John,

I know the cable is good and the connection at the router because I switched them with this PC. Not sure of the device manufacture is, no marking for Intel Pro/100 VE. PC must have used this one as a default or something.

[Peter Stahl]

I give up. The card must be bad. I tried it in my Win 2000 computer and I couldn't find a driver it liked on the system disk. I also put the wireless card back in the XP machine and it's still works. Must be something wrong with the Ethernet Card. I restarted everything, rebooted many times. What was weird or maybe not is when I moved the card to a different PCI slot it said it was ADMtek AN983 10/100 PCI Adapter not a Intel like before. I guess the intel is the generic if it can find a exact match??? Thanks everyone for all their help. May get a new card tomorrow as I need to pick up a ink cartridge, now I know why they give the printers away!

[Jim Becker]

One other thought...make sure your firewall isn't shutting that interface down. (Windows Firewall or 3rd Party such as ZoneAlarm)

[Mark Anderson]

What was weird or maybe not is when I moved the card to a different PCI slot it said it was ADMtek AN983 10/100 PCI Adapter not a Intel like before. I guess the intel is the generic if it can find a exact match???

I had a similar situation with XP seeing a different manufacturer's NIC installed when changing PCI slots. :confused: I left the questionable card installed in the new PCI slot. I installed a second "known good" nic to connect to the internet and let XP update the drivers for the card in question and...voila ! Problem fixed. I attributed the problem to a bad PCI slot on the motherboard. ;)

[Jack Hogoboom]

Try deleting your .tmp files. I had the problem in reverse a month or so ago. Could connect with a cable, but not wirelessly. Deleting the temp files solved the problem.

Also, try opening your device manager and make sure Windows in seeing your ethernet card.

Lastly, if you are using third-party software to control your wireless connection, try deleting it and relying on Windows. That also helped in my case.

Best of luck.

Jack

[Peter Stahl]

I bought a new PCI Wired Network Adapter card. When I go to Network Connections I see 2 items one says connected, the new one I bought the other says Network Cable Unplugged. I double click on the Opened one and it show the Sent/Received activity and also the Connection time. I still can't connect to the internet. How to I connect to this connection? I'm assuming I must need to change something somewhere.

thanks, Pete

[Jim Becker]

Try removing all the connections, rebooting and then add a new connection. Be sure it's validated with your firewall software, too. (You might try that first)

[Peter Stahl]

Try removing all the connections, rebooting and then add a new connection. Be sure it's validated with your firewall software, too.(You might try that first)

Jim,

How do I do this?

I know the router works now because I can access files from the other PC and also printed one of the files which has to be done through the other PC too. Just can't connect to the internet for some reason.

thanks for the reply, Pete

[Peter Stahl]

Don't know if this is exactly what did it but I went into the Internet settings and added a connection under the "Connection Tab" where it says "Dial-up and Virtual Network Settings" and also click the button at "Never dial a connection". Rebooted again and it works now, go figure. Thanks again for all the replies.

[David G Baker]

Don't know if this is exactly what did it but I went into the Internet settings and added a connection under the "Connection Tab" where it says "Dial-up and Virtual Network Settings" and also click the button at "Never dial a connection". Rebooted again and it works now, go figure. Thanks again for all the replies.
Peter,
My computer still has a dial up modem on board and if I do not set my computer up like you just did it tries to dial the phone modem and keeps it up. It has been a long time since I've had this problem so I forgot about it. Wish I thought of it sooner and let you know about it. Would have saved you a lot of time and headaches. Suggestion, start a note book of fixes that you discover the hard way so when bad things happen you may have a ready answer.
Glad you got it working.
David B

[Peter Stahl]

Thanks for the reply David. I really should do the notebook thing as I don't remember what I did yesterday.

[Burt Alcantara]

Peter,
Your cable may be the problem. It's probably not bad, just the wrong type. The 2 basic types are crossover and non-crossover. One device may require it but the other not. It's hard to tell which is which. All of my connection problems go back to this problem, networking being the worst.

Bring your cable to a reliable store and ask what type it is. Then, buy the other type and try again. I'm betting that this will solve your problem.

If this does fix the problem, mark each cable with a piece of tape.

Burt

[Jim Becker]

Burt, that's called a "Layer One" problem...the proverbial "is it plugged in" with the twist of "with the right cable". And it's true that some interfaces will automatically adjust to crossed or non-crossed cables and some will not.

Oh, and "Layer 0" is the really hard one to trouble-shoot..."operator error".:D But I don't think that's the case here. It's either physcial cable/connectivity or driver/software.

[Sandy Masquith]

Possible causes:

Card installed, lights correct on router and card:
-Card is not in a proper PCI slot to be recognised. Move to another slot and try again. PCI is weird about slot locations and some hardware. Ethernet cards want a particular Interrupt. Not all PCI slots have all interrupts.
-Card has a bad (cold short, bad solder) connection/silkscreen. Replace card.
-Windows is not recognising the card properly. Check the device in Windows Device manager (right-click "My Computer", select properties, there will be a Device Manager button on one of the tabs). If it appears with a yellow ! in Device Manager, remove the device. Find and download new drivers for that specific card from the Internet. Cancel the auto-find in Windows startup, and run the setup from the downloaded drivers. If there's no setup, go to Device manager again, find the device, and use the "update drivers" button. Point to where you downloaded the drivers.

Card installed, lights are incorrect on router and/or card:
-Try another port on the router. Some ports on a router may be labeled "MDX" which is a crossover port for connecting routers/switches together. Plug ethernet into a different port on the router.
-Card is not handshaking with the switch/router properly. Some cards are slow or send the wrong sequence of handshaking signals. Not very typical of consumer-class equipment. Remove cable from router/switch for 30 seconds (wouldn't hurt to shut off the router/switch for that long, as long as no one else is using the connection). Plug cable back in and watch to see the light sequence. Computer should be on. The card may need power in order to send handshake sequence, although not required by spec.

If none of these work, replace the card.

[Peter Stahl]

Sandy & Burt,

I posted that I did get it working finally. I changed so many settings that I'm not exactly sure what really worked but I'm pretty sure it was changing the connection in the Internet Options Properties under the Connection tab. Thanks again to all for their replies. Hope this thread helped someone.