Network Card not working...

Cleaning up a friend's computer. Malware is gone but the network card is not working. Went through the WTT forums with LDTate and we have everything clean. Ran the winsock fix tool but still didn't work. I then installed a second nic and that one works. It seems to me then that there might be something wrong with the nic that is integrated into the nForce 410 motherboard. I have updated the motherboard drivers through the nVidia site and still no go. I've played with the autonegotiate, force full duplex, force half duplex and that didn't work either. In all cases, it sees the cable as being disconnected from the nic, even though it is plugged in. I don't get any lights showing on the back of the nic when the cable is plugged in.

Should add some system info: Windows XP Pro SP3 Gateway GT4010

Hi teeps. I looked through your malware thread and didn't see anything very useful except the statement that the onboard network worked prior to the malware infection, so I would not think defective hardware is the cause now.

Where did you get the Nvidia nForce 410 WHQL drivers from? Looking at their web site, I found this link: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_nf4_wi…8.26_11.09.html

Please try the following:

1. Make sure you have the latest WHQL drivers (again) downloaded and available on the computer
2. Open a Command Prompt and enter set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 and press Enter
3. Type devmgmt.msc and press Enter to open Device Manager
4. Expand Network Adapters.
5. Right click on each one shown and Delete it.
6. Click on View / Show hidden devices at the top and see if any additional network devices are shown. If yes, delete them as well. Likewise is there are any devices with a yellow mark by them, delete them as well.
7. Close Device Manager and Command Prompt and power down.
8. Remove the NIC you added.
9. Power up.

XP will rediscover the onboard NIC and reload the drivers for it. See if it works now.
If not, try installing the latest nVidia WHQL drivers again.

Let's see where we stand when you're done with this.

Interesting. So I followed your instructions including powering down and removing the extra card. When it came back up, it reinstalled the 1394 adapter but was not successful reinstalling the NIC. Now I have a yellow icon under "Other Device" labeled "Other PCI Bridge Device". I went ahead and installed the nForce drivers that you pointed to in this thread. I only installed the ethernet driver. Now it is showing "nVidia nForce Networking Controller" under "Networking adapters". I was pretty sure before that it was previously named "nVidia nForce ethernet 10/100 adapter" or something similar. Still no recognition of a cable being plugged in. I have to leave at noon CST today (12/29) and won't have access to the machine until 12/31. Thanks for all your help on this.

I should also note that the drivers that were previously installed for the NIC had a date of 8/1/2008 which seems to me more current than the one I just installed. I had tried a couple different driver sources. First I tried installing all new drivers for the motherboard. I let the nVidia site decide which drivers I needed. When that failed, I tried the hardware update for this NIC as suggested on the Microsoft Update site. Neither worked obviously, but they both gave me more recent drivers. So… not sure what to do next.

Additional Hardware info. Seems I was wrong on the chipset. But that would have still pointed us to the same drivers. Manufacturer : Gateway Mainboard : First International Computer, Inc. KTBC51G Bios : Phoenix Technologies, LTD Chipset : nVidia nForce 430 Physical Memory : 1024 MB DDR-SDRAM LPC bus : Yes PCI Bus : Yes Bus PCI-Express : Yes USB Bus : Yes SMBus/i2c Bus : Yes Bus HyperTransport : Yes Bus QPI : No Bus CardBus : No Bus FireWire : Yes Network : Yes Internet Connection : No RAS Connection : No Passport.Net : No Winsock32 : v2.02 Network Connection : 1394 Connection 3 Network Connection : Local Area Connection 5 Connection Information : Device : NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller LAN : Yes RAS : No Share to LAN : No Share to WAN : Yes Firewall enabled : Yes Shared Connection : No Default connection : No Network Card : 1394 Net Adapter Network Card : NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller Adaptor Information #1 : Description : NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller - Packet Scheduler Miniport Type : Ethernet MAC Address : 00-40-CA-AE-77-FA DHCP : Yes WINS : No Speed : 100 000 000 bps MTU : 1500 bytes Connected : No

I hate coincidences, but this is looking like a hardware failure around the same time the malware appeared. Your best bet is to disable the on board nic and go with the one you added.

I tend to agree on that. There was a transport via auto. So its always possible that it got dropped/mishandled in the process. I would think though that if it was, it would have effected more than just the integrated nic. Do you know of any good hardware diagnosis tools that could confirm this theory? Otherwise, its no biggy to leave the extra nic in and tell them to ignore the integrated one. I should likely put something over the top of it to avoid future confusion.

I don't know of any program or diagnostic that can tell you if a nic is good or bad. Would be nice though.

When faced with this sort of problem, I often stick in a live distro of Linux Puppy or Ubuntu and see if I can get it to work. If I can…… then the NIC (or onboard chip) is OK if not…… then I terminate the diagnostic approach and stick in a new network adapter..they are so cheap nowadays.

Sweet… thanks for the help guys. I grabbed an iso of Kubuntu 9.10 and booted to the LiveCD. That OS also sees the cable as being unplugged. I'll throw in the extra nic in and we'll call this one resolved. Thanks for the help guys and many blessings to you in 2010!

Paws — excellent idea to use Linux to see if it's hardware or software! Happy New Year

Thanks Rich and a very Happy New Year to you. also grateful thanks for all the hard work, and expertise that you donate to WTT….it is really appreciated.