XP won't recognize ethernet adapter... onboard AND in PCI...
 

hi all,

i'm trying to help a friend of mine with his eMachines PC (yeah, i know. i know!)... anyway, after doing some major work on it previously, i got the damn thing up an running at my place. when i took it over to his house and set it up, the network card got messed up somehow.

he's got an onboard network adapter, so i figure that it's probably busted, so i install a card in his PCI slot. XP won't work with either of them! in the Device Manager, the adapters are listed under "Unknown Devices", and both have the exclamation point on them.

i've tried uninstalling/reinstalling them, rolling back drivers, updating drivers, uninstalling/reinstalling the PCI bus, uninstalling TCP/IP, flushing TCP/IP, disabling the onboard LAN, disabling the 1394 Net Adapter (which also shows up in Device Manager as unknown), and i've pulled a lot of my own hair out in the process.

in the Events log, there's a warning for RASMAN (Code 20027) saying that it couldn't start due to some problem with the Remote Access Connection Manager.... i've tried stopping/starting/restarting the service (along with Telephony) but it doesn't appear to have any effect. i've looked up the error code but got nothing relating to XP... only NT and W2K.

i should mention that about a week before this problem occurred, i had to wipe the drive and reinstall everything due to random BSODs he was getting. the BSODs have gone away, however this new problem is occurring. so this is pretty much a brand new XP installation.

help!!! :-(

Have you installed the motherboard drivers that are for the eMachine? XP doesn't have them for some PCs. Neither the PCI slots or the onboard functions will work unless XP recognizes them default (rare) or you've installed them. You said you tried installing drivers already but I want to make sure you got the mobo chipset drivers, not just the PCI card drivers.

That's true. They use lots of VIA chipsets. Open the cover and you'll see a big chip stamped VIA xxxx. Go to VIA's site and grab the Hyperion or 4-in-1 package, depending on that board's needs. (Generally, the stuff eMachines supplies is ancient.)

@ Lasereth

yes. when i did a wipe, i used the eMachines "restore" disks to restore it to factory condition. everything worked after doing that up until recently.

i've checked eMachines' site for update drivers. nothing.
i've installed the latest Intel drivers too. nothing.
i've installed the 3Com drivers (for the PCI card). nothing.
i've installed a Kingston card. nothing.

???


@ Cyrnel

the board uses an Intel chipset. i'll check for an update on that, but i'm hesitant to update anything that wasn't done in the past... originally this machine came to me for a Video Controller issue. not sure if one has anything to do with the other, but it didn't have the network adapters problem prior to a week ago.


P.S. - thanks for the responses so far!

"yes. when i did a wipe, i used the eMachines "restore" disks to restore it to factory condition. everything worked after doing that up until recently."



So are you saying that the ethernet and PCI slots worked after the wipe and "restore" install, and then stopped working? If so, then you probably have the drivers you need on the restore discs. Otherwise it sounds like you need those particular drivers, which may not be with the chipset drivers. Can you find out the manufacturer of those two items (for PCI not the card you have, but the slot itself)? Do the restore discs have a directory with drivers?

@ Ratman

the onboard adapter WAS working (at my place) for a good week after the wipe/reinstall. then, when the machine was brought to my friend's place, it didn't work. i installed the PCI card because i figured it would be a quick fix. but alas, that didn't work either. i'm sure the restore disks have the drivers, but they didn't work. (but i'll try them again...)

the adapter is an Intel Pro/100 VE. so far, i've tried the original drivers, and updated ones directly from Intel. chipset is also Intel. (eMachines doesn't even have the drivers available to download on their site...)

thanks. :-)

i should probably also mention that i've tried:

- booting in safe mode. no result.
- running SFC. no result.

Y'know, after re-reading your OP, and the last two as well, you have done everything I would have done except wipe and re-install again. I don't know if you can do this at your friend's house, but if the ethernet adapter was working at your house, maybe the bugginess happened when you switched to a different router/ DSL modem/whatever. I have no experience with eMachines, but from what I understand, they are kind of a crapshoot as to testing compatibility of components with each other, different software and whatnot. I would (after investing in some Rogaine) eliminate as many variables as possible with this unit and try to get it working where it's going to be working. I mean wipe and install, check onboard. If yes, connect to friend's network. If no, uninstall onboard, restart. No adapter on restart, good. install PCI. You obviously know the slow, painful drill, but at this point that's what I'd do.

@Ratman

yeah, i was hoping to avoid that route.... so far, with the time i've invested in fixing this machine (if i was charging for the work), it could've bought two Dells....

i'm doing a "safe" system recovery to see if that will do the trick. but if it does, i'm wondering if it too will drop off again later.

anyone have any ideas why this would happen?

for the record, i've also tried:

- winsockfix. no effect.
- eMachine's driver recovery application. no effect.
- restoring default BIOS settings. no effect.
- kicking the machine. no effect. (but it made me feel better.)

:-)

Any chance you're using the non-ACPI HAL? (did you reset the BIOS defaults before the last install?) Plug & play is working?

But on a laptop that would cause all kinds of other problems. Is everything else working okay?

@Cyrnel

prior to the first wipe, i did not reset the BIOS.... yet everything worked perfectly. the previous problems the machine had (random BSODs, Video Controller issue in Device Manager) were solved with the wipe. they worked for a week, then the network dropped out.

i did another system restore this morning and it gave me some fatal error (could not write to the registry) and now won't boot. i'm running SpinRite on the drive, though i don't think it'll find anything...

so, at this point, i am still at a loss. prior to this second restore, the only issues with the machine were the unknown devices: the Intel Pro/100 VE Network Connection, 1394 Net Adapter, and WAN Miniport.

if i get the machine bootable again, i will check on Plug & Play, however my suspicion is that it was working fine.... there was no warnings or errors on it in the system logs, and i've plugged/unplugged devices with no errors either.

Ignore my laptop comment. I have three dead ones on my bench. Sigh.

Doesn't sound like it's getting better. Too many failures after a restore/install. Does any old linux livecd work with the hardware? If it has troubles with that I'd run a memcheck. Before writing more to the disk. You could have dropouts that the POST isn't finding.

Or...

You have business insurance, right?

Set the system somewhat near a table edge. Leave a bit of your lunch on it.

Invite that cat you just adopted into the room.

Oops. :)

@Cyrnel.

hahahahaha... i'll try a liveCD. don't know why i didn't try that yet....

i ran a Memtest prior to the first wipe. nothing turned up. SpinRite also didn't find any disk errors...

damn gremlins!

infernal computer!!!!

i tried an old Knoppix liveCD. the network adapter works on that. surfed the net and everything. but of course, upon restart, i still can't boot into WinXP.

so, i think i'm going to shred the drive, and do a completely new installation.

one thing i noticed is that the NIC's lights would come on during the POST process then turn off when the WinXP screens would start... curious.

maybe i should tell my friend to run Linux? :-)

Disregard, just saw that you already tried the winsock fix.

I had the same problem with one of my servers a few weeks ago.
try one of the tools online to reset winsock. a quick google search will get you the exe file. http://windowsxp.mvps.org/winsock.htm

@oiekeooiyw

yup. winsock didn't fix the machine.

well, yesterday i ended up doing another wipe/reinstall. i have yet to install the other programs that were on the system prior to this wipe. i guess i will see if the NIC stays operative. i'm also anxious to see whether some third-party program is fuxin' things up... (i'm looking at you, Norton Internet Security...)

thanks to all that gave suggestions and moral support. i wish i could find the culprit for this NIC problem, but alas, being an eMachine, chalk it up to sheer crappy-ness.

:-)

You might write down the configuration of the nic, video, soundcard.
If the nic stops working again, see if Windows changed the memory or IRQ
or something. Then maybe try a forced configuration.

forced how? hardware profile or by changing the settings manually?

Hardware settings but if the device is not Plug 'N' Pray you may have to do the manual thing on the card too.

Or change thr card settings, if possible, and Windows may set things up without
a problem ?? I don't know if/how Windows queries a device or just reads an inf file.