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I thought installing the chipset driver would do the onboard LAN, but it didn't.

I can't find a stand-alone LAN driver anywhere on the interweb, can someone suggest how I can find the correct one? (Windoze suggests it connect to the internet and search, which is a nice thought but without a LAN driver...)

I'm going to ask Abit, but thought perhaps you guys could tell me what I'm doing wrong.

In case you missed it the board is an old Abit AN7 socket A. I don't have a 'driver disk' as such, just what I could find on their site.

Any help greatly appreciated.

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Dani AI

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Short summary and checklist based on what worked here: the AN7’s onboard NIC is provided by the NVIDIA nForce southbridge (the MCP family), so its driver is normally delivered as part of the nForce/chipset package rather than a separate “LAN adapter” download. That explains why installing the correct nForce chipset package (as eventually did) restored network functionality. Good call by to identify the device first with a system-info tool.

Quick troubleshooting checklist (useful for the same symptom on other vintage boards)

  • Confirm BIOS: make sure the onboard LAN is enabled in BIOS/CMOS settings.
  • Identify the device in Device Manager: look for any “Network Controller” with an error, open Properties → Details → Hardware Ids (VEN and DEV). Those IDs point to the exact vendor/device.
  • If offline, use another PC to download drivers: search by the VEN/DEV values or grab the nForce chipset/network package from the motherboard vendor or NVIDIA archive. Install chipset drivers first, then network drivers, then reboot.
  • If an installer fails, extract the driver INF and use Device Manager → Update Driver → Have Disk to install manually.
  • If running a much newer OS, try the vendor’s legacy drivers in compatibility mode or use a virtual XP environment to confirm the hardware; some very old NIC drivers aren’t supported natively on modern Windows.

Extra notes: tools that read hardware IDs (Everest/AIDA64/HWiNFO) are useful for identification—that’s what helped here. Prefer the motherboard vendor package when available because it may include board-specific INF tweaks; otherwise the generic nForce package will usually provide the MCP network driver.

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Member Avatar for caperjack

get Everest ,it will show you exactly what adapter the board used and then just search the net for driver . just look in network section or pci device section
http://www.filehippo.com/download_everest_home/

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Great, cheers :)

When I get home from work I'll do just that.

Man I'm glad I've got another computer to get on the net with, otherwise I'd need to change the motherboard to get the Everest stuff, then change to check the adapter, then change to download the driver, then change to install the driver... phew.

Soon to be solved.

Member Avatar for The New Normal

Fixed.

I used Everest but all it gave me was nVidia MCP2 controller. Well I decided to just get a generic chipset driver for an nForce2 mobo. I didn't realise till I went to install that it was exactly the same as what I had used originally.

I gave it a go anyway, and viola, LAN working. I've no idea what happened 1st time (sound etc. worked then...)

Thanks for your help caperjack :)

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your welcome

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