LAN won't cooperate

[Guest]

Hi there, I'm locked in mortal combat with my son's computer..Win XP sp2. At
home, his computer was connected directly to mine via (crossover?) cable.
Worked fine, he connected to the internet through my machine. Delivered him
to university, He's provided with a fast connection into the university
system. When he tried to pug into the system, his comp. kept saying "a cable
is unplugged", which it wasn't. He borrowed another comp. and tested his
physical connection (cable+scket) they were fine, the other comp. went
straight onto the network. We then thought maybe the lan connection was
searching for our home network (despite setting up everything according to
university instructions). After a lot of research, i uninstalled the lan
(from the device manager) and tried a fresh connection...no joy. same
message..The Lan is onboard so couldn't be physically uninstalled...the light
came on intermittently when the cable was plugged in.. and so I figured maybe
he'd damaged the connection when taking cables in and out....Really cheesed
off by now..went and got an ethernet card...BUT when I installed the card
+driver, the computer resurrected the uninstalled onboard Lan too...and now
we're getting "limited or no Connectivity". and or "A network cable is
unplugged" .SO I went into the BIos and disbled the onboard Lan, configured
the card and TERRific..all seemed well, we got onto the network...BUT next
day,(after i'd gone home) he turned on computer and NO NETWORK CONNECTIONS
present...Has the bios disabled the card too? What on earth can I try next?

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

Hi there, I'm locked in mortal combat with my son's computer..Win XP
sp2. At home, his computer was connected directly to mine via
(crossover?) cable. Worked fine, he connected to the internet through
my machine. Delivered him to university, He's provided with a fast
connection into the university system. When he tried to pug into the
system, his comp. kept saying "a cable is unplugged", which it
wasn't. He borrowed another comp. and tested his physical connection
(cable+scket) they were fine, the other comp. went straight onto the
network. We then thought maybe the lan connection was searching for
our home network (despite setting up everything according to
university instructions). After a lot of research, i uninstalled the
lan (from the device manager) and tried a fresh connection...no joy.
same message..The Lan is onboard so couldn't be physically
uninstalled...the light came on intermittently when the cable was
plugged in.. and so I figured maybe he'd damaged the connection when
taking cables in and out....Really cheesed off by now..went and got
an ethernet card...BUT when I installed the card +driver, the
computer resurrected the uninstalled onboard Lan too...and now we're
getting "limited or no Connectivity". and or "A network cable is
unplugged" .SO I went into the BIos and disbled the onboard Lan,
configured the card and TERRific..all seemed well, we got onto the
network...BUT next day,(after i'd gone home) he turned on computer
and NO NETWORK CONNECTIONS present...Has the bios disabled the card
too? What on earth can I try next? --
All help gratefully received

The BIOS is not the likely culprit here. Is the new card showing up in
device manager? Is the onboard NIC? If you don't want to use that, it can be
disabled *there* - no need to go into the BIOS for it if you don't want.

In the network card properties in Network Connections, is it set to
autosense, or is it locked to a specific speed or duplex setting? He may
need to play with the settings to get it to work on this other network by
trying various settings therein.

 

[Guest]

Hi there, thanks for your response...I went into the bios to disable the
onboard Lan because when I installed the software for the new ethernet card,
the nic ( reappearred! I have now got the ethernet card back in device
manager (took all PCI cards out and just put the ethernet card back), it is
connecting to his academic network...I would still prefer to use the onboard
Lan especially as it now seems likely that the problem arises when his sound
card is plugged in at the same time. can autosense be used on an onboard lan?
IF THE NETWORK CARD AND ONBOARD LAN ARE BOTH INSTALLED, SHOULD I HAVE 2 LOCAL
AREA CONNECTION ICONS? i ONLY EVER HAD ONE, WHICH MAKES IT HARD TO KNOW WHICH
ONE YOU'RE CONFIGURING?--
All help gratefully received

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

Hi there, thanks for your response...I went into the bios to disable
the onboard Lan because when I installed the software for the new
ethernet card, the nic ( reappearred! I have now got the ethernet
card back in device manager (took all PCI cards out and just put the
ethernet card back), it is connecting to his academic network...I
would still prefer to use the onboard Lan especially as it now seems
likely that the problem arises when his sound card is plugged in at
the same time. can autosense be used on an onboard lan? IF THE
NETWORK CARD AND ONBOARD LAN ARE BOTH INSTALLED, SHOULD I HAVE 2
LOCAL AREA CONNECTION ICONS?
Yes.

i ONLY EVER HAD ONE, WHICH MAKES IT HARD
TO KNOW WHICH ONE YOU'RE CONFIGURING?--

You can see the name of the card - change the view in Network Connections to
"details" instead of "icons" to make this easier.

You can right-click on the card in here or in Device Manager and choose
Disable.

 

[Guest]

Sounds good to me....as my son is currently out and about, I won't be able to
try this out just yet, but i reckon most concerns are covered. (Have also
mailed mboard manufactures re "dodgy" onboard Lan). If I get stuck again
I'll certainly look for help here. Thanks so much for your help.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

Sounds good to me....as my son is currently out and about, I won't be
able to try this out just yet, but i reckon most concerns are
covered. (Have also mailed mboard manufactures re "dodgy" onboard
Lan). If I get stuck again I'll certainly look for help here. Thanks
so much for your help.

No worries - post back if you need more help.

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