CMOS changes and blocks network start

S

Steve Garry

Xp Pro, SP3, and fully patched, machine will not see network on cold boot.
it's one of 4 on my local network, the other 3 are fine.

System details

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name AMD-2
System Manufacturer NVIDIA
System Model AWRDACPI
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 44 Stepping 2 AuthenticAMD ~1808 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG, 26/08/2005
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
User Name xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Time Zone GMT Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 4,096.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 1.60 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 3.85 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
AMD


Have spent a LOT of time investigating, including a clean reinstall of XP
only, with format of HDD also, which did allow it to work initially.

After discovering that the problem wasn't cleared, I have also tried a
different power supply, and changed the CMOS battery.

The BIOS was also flashed to the latest level, not without some problems due
to flash revision levels, but as far as I can tell, it is all correct.

My suspicion is that something in a recent change of XP is corrupting the
CMOS, if I power down completely, remove CMOS battery, and then clear CMOS,
on restart, after loading defaults and setting date/time and specific
configuration options, it works 100%.

Warm boot, restarts, all fine.

Cold boot, and I have to reset the CMOS again.

I've since discovered that just restoring the defaults on startup will allow
it to work now, which may be related to the flash not having defaults loaded.

There's no indication of any errors in the CMOS checksum at startup, and no
other issues that I am aware of, and as far as I can see, the only thing left
is that somehow, XP is doing something to a CMOS setting that is preventing
the network from working after the next cold boot. No applications other than
XP have been run, and the machine is protected from intrusion by an external
firewall, so there should not be anything nasty there.

I am trying to find a utility that will allow me to dump and examine the
CMOS contents, so that I can try and pin this down, but I've not found one
yet. I want to see if CMOS changes in areas other than date and time between
boots, as that may give a clue as to what's going on.

This has me well baffled, I've been around hardware for a very long time,
but never seen a problem that's this specific and repeatable in this way.

Looking for hints, suggestions or ideas of what may be causing this strange
behaviour

Thanks
 
J

JS

Device Manager and Network Connections may be blank after you install
Windows XP Service Pack 3
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953791/en-us

Device Manager may not show any devices and Network Connections may not
show any network connections after you install Windows XP Service Pack 3.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953979/en-us

Changes to the 802.1X-based wired network connection settings in Windows XP
Service Pack 3
Describes that the AuthMode and SupplicantMode registry entries are no
longer used in
Windows XP Service Pack 3 for a 802.1X-based wired network connection.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949984/en-us

You cannot connect to an 802.1X wired network after you upgrade to Windows
XP Service Pack 3
Problem in which you cannot connect to an 802.1X wired network.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953650/en-us

JS
http://www.pagestart.com
 
S

Steve Garry

Update,

Networking Does work, as long as I reset the defaults in CMOS before boot.
If I don't, everything is there, and all the basics are in place, it just
fails to connect from the machine to the hub.

That's what is so confusing about this, my understanding is that the CMOS is
checksummed, so if it was being corrupted, the Checksum error warning would
show during boot, and ask for an update. It doesn't, the machine loads
apparently normally, and the only thing missing is the network connectivity.
Reset the CMOS, reboot, and it's working, no other changes at all are needed.

I have checked the possible implication of the changes for SP3, and as far
as I can see, the necessary things are there.

Thanks
 
S

Steve Garry

JS,

Could be, the network chip is on board, and there is a control option to
enable and disable in BIOS, which is correctly set to enable, and the option
for network boot is disabled, also correct.

Mobo is Biostar NF325A7.

Device manager is not showing any issues, and I am using the machine right
now to send these messages, that's the strange thing, once it's up, it stays
there until the next cold boot, with no problems at all, and it's downloaded
several gigabytes of updates for various applications without a single missed
packet or retry.

This issue is very similar to one that has been causing huge grief with Zone
Alarm recently (ZA is NOT installed on this machine), and ZA are saying that
they are having problems finding the cause, and based on a lot of hours this
week reloading XP Pro, and downloading the updates in a planned manner, to
try and isolate where this is coming from, I can understand that only too
well.

Do you know of any utilities or similar that would allow me to see what's in
CMOS at various times, so that I can try and get an idea if something is
being changed, and if it is, when that's happening. Obviously, the time area
is being constantly updated, but I would expect the other areas to remain
pretty static.

Cheers

Steve
 
S

Steve Garry

JS,

Nvidia Nforce, and then it also shows up a whole selection of devices, all
of which are happy, and showing no problems.
Driver is 4.4.2.0, as far as I know, correct version.
 
P

Paul

Steve said:
Xp Pro, SP3, and fully patched, machine will not see network on cold boot.
it's one of 4 on my local network, the other 3 are fine.

System details

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name AMD-2
System Manufacturer NVIDIA
System Model AWRDACPI
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 44 Stepping 2 AuthenticAMD ~1808 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG, 26/08/2005
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
User Name xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Time Zone GMT Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 4,096.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 1.60 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 3.85 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
AMD


Have spent a LOT of time investigating, including a clean reinstall of XP
only, with format of HDD also, which did allow it to work initially.

After discovering that the problem wasn't cleared, I have also tried a
different power supply, and changed the CMOS battery.

The BIOS was also flashed to the latest level, not without some problems due
to flash revision levels, but as far as I can tell, it is all correct.

My suspicion is that something in a recent change of XP is corrupting the
CMOS, if I power down completely, remove CMOS battery, and then clear CMOS,
on restart, after loading defaults and setting date/time and specific
configuration options, it works 100%.

Warm boot, restarts, all fine.

Cold boot, and I have to reset the CMOS again.

I've since discovered that just restoring the defaults on startup will allow
it to work now, which may be related to the flash not having defaults loaded.

There's no indication of any errors in the CMOS checksum at startup, and no
other issues that I am aware of, and as far as I can see, the only thing left
is that somehow, XP is doing something to a CMOS setting that is preventing
the network from working after the next cold boot. No applications other than
XP have been run, and the machine is protected from intrusion by an external
firewall, so there should not be anything nasty there.

I am trying to find a utility that will allow me to dump and examine the
CMOS contents, so that I can try and pin this down, but I've not found one
yet. I want to see if CMOS changes in areas other than date and time between
boots, as that may give a clue as to what's going on.

This has me well baffled, I've been around hardware for a very long time,
but never seen a problem that's this specific and repeatable in this way.

Looking for hints, suggestions or ideas of what may be causing this strange
behaviour

Thanks
Click to expand...

The MAC layer is integrated into the chipset. The PHY is a
separate chip. So the Ethernet would be considered "Nvidia"
in some sense. The RealTek part is just the PHY. The driver
will come from Nvidia. (There may be different versions of
the board, and the above info is what I found by looking
at the manual.)

The Ethernet driver is part of the chipset package, which
is why one of the downloads from Biostar is 33MB.

In the Nvidia Forums, I see mention of a build-in firewall
in the Nvidia Ethernet implementation. And something called
NAM (Nvidia Access Manager). Perhaps the issues have something
to do with the implementation of the LAN. Maybe a separate PCI LAN
card will cause less grief than debugging further.

One thing you might check, in the "busted" case, is whether
the hardware has a MAC address or not. My Nforce2 board, had
a funny feature where the MAC address could be burned into the
BIOS via the BIOS flash program. And some people managed to
delete their MAC address (it is supposed to be unique, and
on my motherboard, the proper MAC address is printed on an
adhesive label stuck to the board). By using the value
printed on the label, and the flasher program, it was possible
to put it back again.

http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=150240

In that article, they claim "ipconfig /all" in a DOS
box, will report the MAC (physical) address. I see
a total of 12 digit reported, as in xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx.

Paul
 
M

Mike Moreland

Un-install SP3 and re-install SP2. SP3 is basically a beta version that
never really worked right; and will probably never work right since Vistas
release. I've had several friends with similar problems that all were
corrected by reverting back to SP2. Good luck.
 

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