I have a wired network we just put in our home from our office to one of our bedrooms. Our laptop which has built in LAN works fine over this network's ethernet, but the desktop PC in that bedroom just gets a limited or no connectivity signal. It cannot see other computers on the network and it cannot access the internet, but says it is connected. It was on a wireless card before (linksys wireless G) and now it is running off of an older asound 10/100 mbs LAN card that we have had for awhile. The laptop and the hub PC are running Zonealarm, but this one is not, and I am not sure if that will have an effect on it at all. What do u guys think the problem could be? *prays for settings change*

May sound like a dumb question but did you make the cable or was it pre-made? If you made it check that. If not check to see if you have a static IP set.

Also what kind of router is it?

First I would ping the NIC (127.0.0.1). Then if you get replies back, I would check the cabling as Sn0wMan said. If you made it, you might have mixed up a wire or 2 and not noticed (been there, done that).

Then I would run IPconfig to check to see that you are receiving an IP address.

Hell, even if you haven't swapped a couple of wires, you can still get a flakey connection if you didn't crimp the plug hard enough.

Knowing the laptop's cable is good, try using that.

Yes we made the cord connections ourselves but I checked the wires and nothing seems wrong. The laptop still runs fine and was on the same exact cable used with the desktop PC. When i ping i get no data loss on the NIC but if i ping anything the router or another computer on the network i get complete data loss and im getting no default gateway or DNS numbers (not exactly sure what that means). My LAN card is pretty old so i may try getting a new one.

Figure out what the IP scheme your router's DHCP server is handing out. Once you do that, I would try just manually inputting a IP address. Also what kind of router are you using? most routers default their IP schemes like 192.168.1.x with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.

It doesn't seem like there's a problem with your nic, I'd bet its a configuration issue.

Ok, i manually entered the IP (192.168.0.1) subnet mask and default gateway, and suddenly my connection moved to connected status. It says it is completely connected but i still cant see other computers and when i ping the router or other computers it times out. I just thought of something and that was that i was previously running a linksys G wireless card for internet/networking and have had an ethernet card (the one im using) for some time and never used it. We put in the cat5 line because the wireless is proving too weak to use in this house, so now i am using it. Is there a maybe a conflict with the wireless card? The router we have is a D-Link wireless G mimo router.

Quote: Originally Posted by gurzigost Is there a maybe a conflict with the wireless card? The router we have is a D-Link wireless G mimo router.

Probably not ... but here's another question: what kind of hub are you using, and what ports are you plugged into with what connections? Some 4-5 port hubs share a port with the WAN connection, and if both 4 and 5 are being used, they conlfict with each other.

-godling

I have a 4 port router with one WAN port which has a cable modem hooked up to it. There are currently 2 computers which hook up to it by ethernet which are the one with problems (port 1) and the main office desktop PC (port 2). Before they were in port 1(problematic one) and 4(office PC), but to no avail. However as i have said before we tried the same setup with a laptop on the same ethernet cord and cat5 line going to the router and the laptop worked, but the problematic desktop PC did not.

Quote: Originally Posted by gurzigost I have a 4 port router with one WAN port which has a cable modem hooked up to it. There are currently 2 computers which hook up to it by ethernet which are the one with problems (port 1) and the main office desktop PC (port 2). Before they were in port 1(problematic one) and 4(office PC), but to no avail. However as i have said before we tried the same setup with a laptop on the same ethernet cord and cat5 line going to the router and the laptop worked, but the problematic desktop PC did not.

Is the WAN port next to Port 1? Was the laptop w/ cable plugged into the same port that the PC is plugged into now?

Other than that, have you tried finding updated drivers for the NIC? What model is it? Is it possible the card is simply failing?

-godling

i have run into this exact problem on aging Compaq deskpro's....at least 4-5 of them...

the nics just stop recieving packets, period, something to do with hardware, and it happens out of the blue. when it happens, the DHCP client will not acquire an IP address, though you will notice packets being sent out like crazy, and manually configuring your IP settings will not do anything, since you will only be assigning those numbers to a malfunctioning NIC.

replacing the nic fixed every case, instantly.

I tried replacing the network adapter (was an old asound model, now a linksys 10/100 Etherfast PCI adapter) which is where my NIC would be, and so no difference in performance (besides the fact that there was a minte lag whenever the old card was enabled, and that was solved). Also I am seeing no packet output to the network or the internet. Yes the laptop's connection was on the same port setup on the router end of the cable and the router has the WAN port next to port 1. Would attempting a reformat on the client PC do anthing maybe? I have dealt quite a bit with the wireless network we had previously and maybe theres a setting i changed that would be reset upon a format. I really have nothing all that importanat i would be losing anyway.

This may sound stupid.. but instead of blowing away your entire os.. try running the Network wizard again, that will rebuild all your TCP/IP stack, maybe that might fix things.

I tried the networking wizard and it didnt work. I tried reformatting anyway and found that windows can only boot in safe mode. When it tries to boot normally, its goes to a black screen when the windows logo pops up on the screen. In safe mode i tried running the sstem file checker and it told me my RPC server is unavailable. I restarted and at one time it actually booted normally but the sfc still told e the RPC was unavailable. When i ran disc check it told me the drive had errors, so would getting a new hard drive mabe solve the problem? If it was a motherboard issue i would think it wouldnt boot at all.

If you have another desktop available to slave your suspect hard drive into, you can use SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer to test the SMART.

That's not alway a 100% way to tell your drive is bad, but you can use it as a general guideline.

I just noticed that if I tried to start in safe mode w/ networking it would not boot correctly. I then took out my network adapter and it boots just fine. Does this mean it is a motherboard issue maybe?

Quote: Originally Posted by gurzigost I just noticed that if I tried to start in safe mode w/ networking it would not boot correctly. I then took out my network adapter and it boots just fine. Does this mean it is a motherboard issue maybe?

Maybe ... but more likely the NIC ...

Im kind of a noob as far as networking goes but i dont have on-board LAN so i need a card. I believe that means the NIC is the LAN card correct? I just replaced that 3 days ago so i cant see that being the problem. (Maybe the new one is faulty too?) I could be wrong tho. I reinstalled my wireless card and that is working better than before i formatted (not surprising).

Quote: Originally Posted by gurzigost Im kind of a noob as far as networking goes but i dont have on-board LAN so i need a card. I believe that means the NIC is the LAN card correct? I just replaced that 3 days ago so i cant see that being the problem. (Maybe the new one is faulty too?) I could be wrong tho. I reinstalled my wireless card and that is working better than before i formatted (not surprising).

Yes, the NIC is short for Network Interface Card, or LAN card as you've been referring to it. Same thing.

Okay, try two things for me, if you haven't already:

1. Just try taking that cat-5 cable going into the router and plug it into port 2 or 3 instead of Port 1. Also, remove any other cat-5 from that router other than the WAN (your internet) feed. I want to make sure it's not using any ports besides the WAN and the port going to your machine.

2. If that doesn't work, check the settings on your router itself. You may have limited your hardline connections somehow. What is the make / model of the router?

-godling

Again, this may not help you, but its worth a try.

http://forums.pcapex.com/other_hardw...l_network.html