10/100 Mbps PCI Network card disabled

[Leg]

Initially, disabling ACPI in BIOS caused error when restarting Win'98se. Asked to install Plug & Play BIOS. Turned out bios.vxd was missing from C:\Windows\System. Downloaded bios.vxd from driverguide.com and all seemed well as i was now able to install & configure NIC
Now i have the NIC configured and it's showing in device manager etc...
When i try to join the network i get error message: Unable to browse network. I am setting up a home/office network (Class C).
PC 1 IP:192.168.26.34 Subnet:255.255.255.0 O/S: XP home edition
PC 2 IP:192.168.26.35 Subnet:255.255.255.0 O/S: Win'98se

The NIC is sometimes disabled in Device Manager on restart, especially after i introduced the XP networking wizard Floppy disk to it!!!

Totally confused now, please help!!!

p.s. Last resort is to remove other PCI cards (Modem & Sound card) & "rebuild" system starting with NIC!!

[Leg]

Rebuilt a desktop PC
Win'98se (No patches or updates as yet)
Intel Celeron 500Mhz
128Mb SDram
Internal Intel V.92 PCI Modem
Internal ISA parallel port for vinyl letter cutting plotter/cutter
Internal 10/100Mbps PCI NIC

After fresh install restarted machine. Installed drivers for modem, restarted & all seemed fine. Installed drivers for NIC, restarted & that's when things got interesting! After restarting checked Device manager to find NIC disabled.Entered BIOS to check settings and found ACPI still enabled so disabled and restarted. Straightaway asked to install Plug & Play BIOS, rooted around & found that bios.vxd was missing so d/loaded from Driverguide.com & placed into C:\windows\system folder. Restarted PC & all ok. PC now accepting NIC & not disabling on startup but refusing to browse network in My network places!
Only thing i can think of now would be to remove all other Internal PCI cards and start again, any comments would help!!! :cry: :cry: :eek:

[caperjack]

I don't know enough about networking to respond but maybe you could post your problem in the networking fourm .You allready posted it twice here in the windows fourm.If you lose a post just click on you name in this post and click view other post by Leg.
Networking Fourm
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/forum13.html

[DMR]

Leg,

I've merged you other thread into this one. Please do not start multiple threads for a single question; it just confuses things.

Thanks for understanding :)

[DMR]

Your problem at this point may be at a higher level than the NIC.

- Can you ping the IP of your NIC?

- Can you ping the IP of any other machine on your network?

- Can you browse or at least interrogate other machines via command line?
Try the command: net view name_of_other_computer