Oh yay, another driver issue.

[digge]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

Had a similar thing happen to me in the past on a customers computer. Turned out that the Antivirus/firewall suite was the issue (Think it was Norton). The firewall in there had some kind of profile system for each network interface and when you updated the driver it got detected as same card but still not same (i guess) for some reason so no new profile was created and nothing worked.

Tried the settings in the firewall to fix it but was for some reason impossible, not even turning the firewall of worked. The solution was to simply uninstall the whole antivirus/firewall thingy and reinstall it and then it worked fine. Didnt look at your sreenshots so dont know if you have one running, currently on a slow modem connection, might check them tonight when i get back home though.

[pentium]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

There is no antivirus/firewall software installed let alone running.
Also, for those who were so inclined to boast about card-based NICs being superior over onboard ones, I pulled one of my USB cards and plugged in one of my 3Com cards and still no networking. :/

[Wizard]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

keep the 3com in there and start diagnosing and google for these issues, eventually you will find a solution.

Cheers, Wizard

[pentium]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

keep the 3com in there and start diagnosing and google for these issues, eventually you will find a solution.

Cheers, Wizard

If networking has so far failed on EVERY SINGLE NIC I plug into the system It's something related to Windows. At the worst, the card would add an additional step to the troubleshooting. I'm pulling it out.

[Wizard]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

You will need to use 3com card, leave it there and disable the onboard NIC. The realtek onboard NIC of most mainboards blows crunks.

Cheers, Wizard

[pentium]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

You will need to use 3com card, leave it there and disable the onboard NIC. The realtek onboard NIC of most mainboards blows crunks.

Cheers, Wizard

IT'S
NOT
WORKING

Lemme repeat what I said in my last post:

If networking has so far failed on EVERY SINGLE NIC I plug into the system It's something related to Windows.

[Wizard]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

My point is, fix the problem with the windows' network stack itself and keep the 3com card in there. I had so many issues with network in past and google gave many possibilities that I followed up and eventually solved it.

Cheers, Wizard

[pentium]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

I can't spare the PCI slot I need the USB/firewire card that was in there before or else I can't plug in half my stuff and I would rather I not get almost a half dozen hubs just to substitute it.
I don't care who makes it or how well/poorly designed it is, it's a network connection and I need it. Period.

[Toasty]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

Spit balling here....

To me, a background process that *suddenly* appears would be cause for concern.

Have you run a malware scanner since this started? You said you FTP'd it from MSI, but is there any harm in checking?

>>I already know what's using the additional resources and I already mentioned it....<<
Running Process Explorer gives you the ability to see the child processes of that "System" program.
i.e.- System Idle Process->System->smss.exe->winlogon.exe->services.exe->list of background programs.
System normally runs on XP and has many services that are loaded at boot time. Anti-virus, video controller, sound, Java, etc.

http://download.sysinternals.com/Fil...ssExplorer.zip

I had a similar problem (cable in but no connectivity, lights on both switch and card, static IP for office network) and found that you must have the network cable plugged into the card before you remove it in Device Manager.

Device Manager->Uninstall->are you sure->yes
Start->Turn Off->Turn Off
Pull mains plug->Discharge system->remove NIC
Plug in mains->start system
-check Device Manager for no card except maybe the 1394 adapter
-repeat shutdown procedure-
Reinstall NIC
-repeat start up-
Windows should find the original drivers unless you overwrote them with the updated ones.

Is the static IP configured correctly? Correct address? Did you (do you) specify a default gateway?

Go to: Network Connections->NIC name->R-click->Status->Support Tab
Try "Repair" button.

Hope something here helps....

Toast

[sofTest]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

Start in safe mode with drivers disabled.

Go into the hardware device properties manager and open up the network card and *delete* all. Make sure you have correct driver for it and implicitly point that to it instead of windows automatic pick of wrong day method.

I learned this from my pc tech about decade and half in 95 and 98 days and still applies now.

Cheers, Wizard

Sometimes one also have to select hidden devices from the View menu to locate the offenders.

[lucky13]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

Is System Restore available to you? If yes, roll back to a day before all hell broke loose.

Otherwise I have another suggestion.

Go into BIOS and disable your Realtek on-board NIC.

I think you might find the 3com working once you get into Windows.

[zandrax]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

I suppose you already checked the obvious: tested the cable or replaced it with one working, inspected the motherboard for burnt ICs, dusty heatsinks, slow running fans or anything suspicious and cleared the cmos to avoid corrupted bios settings. Since no ethernet card works on Windows, it's likely to be a software issue (malware, corrupted files or settings, etc.); hardware failure is unlikely but not completely impossible.

Enable the Realtek and remove any other ethernet card, boot a Linux live cd (e.g. Ubuntu) and check if lan does work: if linux can't detect the card or it doesn't work, then hardware is damaged. If it works, then boot into Win and restore a backup point from System restore made way before the driver update: it will bring back old drivers, dlls and registry. Last chance is backupping all your files and reinstalling Windows.

Zandrax

[pentium]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

*sigh*
I appreciate everyones assistance here but so far, everything I have been recommended to do I have not only done once but twice in most cases. From malware scans (which not surprisingly picked up nothing as I expected) to driver uninstallations and reinstallations (which I did MANY times in MANY different combinations).
As much as I don't want to do it, because I refuse to reinstall (took me two days to reinstall and configure everything last time I did and I'll have to call Microsoft to get another key for Office XP as well because I used all my installations up) I'll be watching $150 fly out of my pocket and take it into the computer shop here in town. If they fail, fine, I'll backup what I can onto my non-system 1tb drive and start over.

[Wizard]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

Yes, what I was driving at is if the uninstallation of driver did not work for you then you need to google and find hard core fixes like going deep into XP itself and undo what is clogging the network stack.

Like I said, diagnose and researching.

Cheers, Wizard

[Wizard]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

These what I found with google "networking not working" and troubleshoot possible problem by looking at these and run several commands to see if you can find item that reports or point to a possible cause.

http://winhlp.com/wxnet.htm
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/...icbroblems.htm
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/dhcp.htm

Much more so I suggest googling.

Cheers, Wizard

[Wizard]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

10minute expired:

Reason I did so much time spent on networking issues is I hate, hate redoing the install on any OSes is this, I prefer to go in and do surgical repair on a OS rather than reinstalling!

Mind you, I spent HOURS researching on 98 networking problem primarily the networking neighhood not 100% eg, slow to find other computers on network and even not find them while other computer exactly configured works but still slow to list the computers. Yet all of them works accessing the internet via two hubs and a DSL modem. Didn't solve or fully understood the networking neighhood issue (back then, USB is painful and need for a NAS was very high but expensive or ill-poorly designed, sneakernet is clumsy and useless with 5 to 30MB even a 1GB.

Many times I resorted to opening up PC and plug a spare hard drive and transfer, shuffle the HD to another PC. Very RISKY!

Cheers, Wizard

[lucky13]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

*sigh*
I appreciate everyones assistance here but so far, everything I have been recommended to do I have not only done once but twice in most cases. From malware scans (which not surprisingly picked up nothing as I expected) to driver uninstallations and reinstallations (which I did MANY times in MANY different combinations).
As much as I don't want to do it, because I refuse to reinstall (took me two days to reinstall and configure everything last time I did and I'll have to call Microsoft to get another key for Office XP as well because I used all my installations up) I'll be watching $150 fly out of my pocket and take it into the computer shop here in town. If they fail, fine, I'll backup what I can onto my non-system 1tb drive and start over.

Pentium,

Can you clone your drive first?

If so, is System Restore available to you?

Why spent 150 bucks to let someone try things that you can try yourself? Your time is worth more than 150 bucks?

[pentium]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

Pentium,

Can you clone your drive first?

If so, is System Restore available to you?

Why spent 150 bucks to let someone try things that you can try yourself? Your time is worth more than 150 bucks?

What will cloning my drive do?
If you had neglected to read the previous posts, I stated more than once that System Restore failed to do much as falling back to a restore point before the problem still yielded no networking. Something in the system is really, really broken but still functional enough that the loopback still functions. This goes far beyond the scope of my experience with Windows, networking or anything I have ever done and so far by reading the redundant replies in this thread, you guys are also struggling to determine the issue.

[KeriJane]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

Hi pentium

Cloning the drive isn't a bad idea as you can try radical and risky stuff on the clone without risking the original drive.

I did this a few weeks ago on a similarly broken system. First, no network then it wouldn't even boot.
I ended up doing a repair install on the clone which saved all of the programs and product keys.
I was prepared to try other risky techniques like deleting some files in hopes that XP would rebuild them but didn't need to.
It turns out that the 7200.11 drive had bad sectors which caused the broken windows.



So far as the product keys go, you can download key readers to decrypt and view your various product keys as long as the system is running.

Good Luck,
Keri

PS. Broken Windows drive me crazy! My general technique is a clean install.
There's just way too many "layers" and complicated inter-related file structures to go wrong. Those that can perform surgical repair on Windows successfully have my profound respect.

[lucky13]

Re: Oh yay, another driver issue.

you guys are also struggling to determine the issue.

Well, you have the computer, we don't.

Troubleshooting Windows issue requires the operator to "try" different fixes/solutions.

So, cloning the drive before you truly muck it up is a great idea in my books. I always do this to client's HDD first before I try to fix the Windows issue.

When you Google networking issue, there are many, many suggestions out there. Some work right off the bat, and some don't. In the end, if you are trying to save your installation, you need to do it yourself.

Paying some technician 150 bucks to fix this may still turn out a no-go and you end up with format & reinstall. And if that is the case, where does it leave you when you didn't clone the HDD first before you give the comp to the shop? Maybe you need to make sure they clone your HDD first before they attempt fixes so as if they are not successful, they can clone it back and give it back to you to format & reinstall.

Just my 2cents.