Member Avatar for folbyjr

eMachine T3418 on board 10/100 ethernet. Went into control panel (win xp home), network connections, properties. Checked the box to: show icon in notification area when connected, and the network connection was lost. Device manager showed yellow exclaimation next to Device Unknown - nVidia network controller. Uninstalled the driver then reboot the computer. Windows halfway finds new hardware, saying the new found hardware may not work correctly if the machine is not rebooted. Reboot, and same thing. No network connection. Downloaded drivers from the web didn't help. Disabling the on board controller and adding a pci Realtek 10/100 card didn't work. Anyone else seen this strange behavior?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by caperjack

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Short, practical diagnostic path that complements the replies from , and and avoids re-installing drivers blindly.

Start by isolating hardware vs Windows. Boot the machine from a Linux Live USB (any recent Ubuntu/SystemRescue image) or a WinPE stick and check whether the NICs are seen and whether the port has link/activity LEDs. If the adapter is visible and can get an IP under the Live environment the NIC and cable/switch are almost certainly fine and the problem is inside Windows; if the adapter is absent in the Live environment then suspect a motherboard/BIOS or hardware fault.

If Windows is the suspect, remove stale device state and reset the network stack before trying more drivers. From an elevated command prompt:

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
start devmgmt.msc

then in Device Manager choose View → Show hidden devices and uninstall any greyed-out network adapters. After that run:

netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt
netsh winsock reset

Reboot and test.

Also try the basic hardware checks that narrow root cause: reseat the PCI card or move it to another slot, try the same PCI card in a different PC to confirm it works, swap the patch cable and switch port, and reset the BIOS to defaults (or explicitly enable/disable onboard LAN there). Only consider a BIOS update as a last step and follow the vendor instructions exactly — flashing carries real risk.

If the Live-USB test shows the NIC working but Windows still fails even after the cleanup above, focus on reinstalling the motherboard chipset/INF package from the board vendor (not a random driver pack) or a Windows repair install. If the adapter fails even in the Live environment, treat it as a hardware/board-level issue and pursue swap/RMA options.

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Member Avatar for jbennet

vista has problems with some nvidia chipset network controllers , so i assume xp does too. check MS update for hotfixes (use custom not express)

Member Avatar for bobbyraw

when you disable the on board controller did you ENABLE the pci slot. get the latest drivers, remove BOTH devices in hardware, then SHUTDOWN remove the pci card, restart the PC go in the bios disable both PCI and on board. then restart the pc. check in hardware to ensure that non of the devices are showing with any warnings ( yellow circle with exclamation, questions sign or red X)

Member Avatar for caperjack

vista has problems with some nvidia chipset network controllers , so i assume xp does too. check MS update for hotfixes (use custom not express)

that is a sound idea but they lost there network connection ,any ideas how they will getto windows updates !
i have had this problem with onbaord nics before but i have a usb -nic hub to get on and got to windows update to get he drivers ,also strange why the pci nic didn't work .something strange going on.
also you don't need to disable it in the bios as it can be disable in the device manager ,i have onboard and a pci device and do it that way

Member Avatar for jbennet

that is a sound idea but they lost there network connection ,any ideas how they will getto windows updates !

using a flash drive or cd duh

Member Avatar for caperjack

using a flash drive or cd duh

please explain .as the windows updates need to scan the computer to find the nic in question to didplay a updated driver ,so they would need to connect to the internet on the computer .also they tried reloading drives and tried installing a pci nic

Member Avatar for jbennet

fine w/e

also, you can get windows updates without using windows update - just find the updates you need by googling and download them or altervatively use a program called WUD

Member Avatar for caperjack

fine w/e

also, you can get windows updates without using windows update - just find the updates you need by googling and download them or altervatively use a program called WUD

I am a very argumentative person but i will stop here,by saying just one more thing ,they are not looking for windows updates they are looking to get network working .you suggested they use custom windows updates to see if it had a driver update for there onboard nic ,so it has nothing to do with Windows update download program ,it will not download the nic driver for them ! that it i said enough !!

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