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Okay, I'm doing a reformat/clean install of XP Home on a Dell Inspiron 8100, service tag 6NZV111. This unit has the internal Actiontec 82559-based Ethernet Adapter and Modem Combo (MP100IM) that plugs into the Mini-PCI slot, and has two small multipin connectors to connect to the RJ-11 and RJ-45 jacks.

The card was working normally before the clean install, but afterwards, it barely works. By "barely works" I mean that it seems to work very slowly, if at all. For example, it takes several minutes after the desktop appears for the IP address to be configured via DHCP from my Netgear RP614v2 router, connected in turn to my Comcast cable modem. Once the IP address is finally assigned, if I try to browse the Internet, it can take several minutes for a page to load. If I do ipconfig /release , the adapter releases immediately. But ipconfig /renew gives me a An error occurred while renewing Local Area Connection : unable to contact your DHCP server. Request timed out. error message. If I let it sit for a few minutes, then ipconfig again, I find that the address has, in fact, finally been renewed.

If I plug in a USB ethernet dongle to the same machine/cable/router/etc, everything works likety-split. So I'm thinking it's driver issue, as the card was not physically handled during the reinstallation process.

This page says that XP provides the drivers needed for the NIC/modem combo. But when the XP default drivers didn't work, I did try the MP100IM.EXE driver for Win2k and the R33877.EXE driver for Win2k, both downloaded from Dell. (I rolled back to my post-clean-install restore point after each attempt.)

Device manager reports the unit as an Intel 8255x-based PCI Ethernet Adapter (10/100) and says it's working properly. The currently installed driver is Intel Corporation 5.41.22.0000 , dated 7/1/2001.

Any suggestions? Your help is very much appreciated.

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Good find by — this thread shows a very common physical‑layer negotiation problem rather than a DHCP or higher‑level Windows bug. The alternating sub‑millisecond replies and intermittent timeouts, plus a rapidly blinking port LED on the router, are textbook signs of a speed/duplex mismatch or a flaky PHY link. For this machine the reliable fix was to stop relying on auto‑negotiation and use a fixed speed/duplex setting that both ends agree on.

Why that helps: auto‑negotiation can fail when one side (older NIC, cheap router port, or marginal cable) misinterprets the other side’s capability. One end then runs full duplex while the other is stuck in half, producing collisions, CRC errors and lots of retransmits — TCP looks “very slow” even though the link briefly appears alive. Driver updates sometimes help, but the issue lives at the PHY/link layer and is often resolved by matching speed/duplex on both ends.

Practical troubleshooting checklist:

  • Verify with a known‑good NIC (USB or another machine) — if that works, the problem is localized to the laptop NIC/link.
  • Inspect adapter statistics (RX/TX errors, CRC errors, collisions). Rapidly rising error counters point to link/duplex problems.
  • Try forcing the NIC to a lower fixed speed and half duplex if the router port is basic (or, if possible, set the router/switch port to match the NIC). Test each setting for stability.
  • Swap ports/cables and try a different switch/router to isolate the bad peer or local wiring.
  • If forcing settings fixes it but you need better performance long‑term, consider replacing the mini‑PCI NIC or using an external NIC, and keep drivers/firmware updated.

Credit to for the diagnosis and to for confirming the same approach on a WRT54G; forcing matching speed/duplex is an effective, low‑risk way to restore reliable connectivity on older hardware.

Member Avatar for sendres

Okay, an update here. Two distinct chat sessions with Dell went nowhere. The first tech pushed the 3com driver at me, which Windows wouldn't use, of course. The second didn't offer much either, other than installing XP Home yet again from scratch.

So I found a newer version () of the e100b325.sys driver that Windows was using, and that install went fine. But the problem persists.

Now, I ran some ping tests, pinging my router from the laptop, and see something odd. About 50% of the time, the reply is received in <1ms. The rest of the time it times out. So I'm thinking this is related to the "marginal connectivity" I'm experiencing.

The other curious thing is that the activity light on my router (a Netgear RP614v2) for the port I'm connected to keeps flashing rapidly, even when the network is not being used.

I have physically reseated the mini-PCI card. I also mated/unmated the two little multipin connectors several times to hopefully wipe out any corrosion that might have formed. I've tried a new ethernet cable, even though the old one worked fine with another NIC.

So I'm thinking that either my NIC is really toast or there's something wrong configuration-wise that's leading to the packet loss.

Ideas?

Member Avatar for sendres

Solved!

I followed the advice here and turned off auto-negotiation of the connection speed. Works like a charm!

Member Avatar for Amxo

This is an old thread, but I wanted to say thanks. This problem was driving me crazy. It started when I connected my Dell 8100 directly to a Linksys WRT54G router. Changing the ethernet driver settings to 10mb/half duplex solved the problem.

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