XP Startup Woes Resurface!

All: I wrote in the last thread (Trouble upgrading to XP Pro from Win2K Pro) that I'd start a new one if I had other problems. This thread was going to start that way, but….. I was looking into getting my network connections right on the Dell Dimension XPS-T500 (I'll call it PC4 from here on out). The ASOUND 10/100M card (ASOUND Model ALM2)I used with Win2K was installed, and I went to the ASOUND website, got what I thought ws the right driver set for XP, loaded it, and used XP to set it to get an IP address via DHCP from my router (a LinkSys BEFSX41 4-port), I removed the card from the system through Device Manager, and rebooted. The system came up, found the card, and loaded the driver. Still no evicence of a connection to the network. The card wasn't taking any information from the router, and had an IP address and subnet way different than for my network. I decided that maybe I needed a new NIC, got one, and then opened up the machine to take the old card out. The driver was RTL8139.sys–and the chip on the card was marked ASOUND 8139. I then wondered if I needed a new card after all, reinstalled the old one, and restarted the PC–it wouldn't come up. I spent the rest of the night trying several reboots with Boot Logging to see if the log was fairly consistent. It was. I checked it against the "good" boot log I had when the machine came up 2 days ago. Some of the drivers being loaded this time were in addition to what was loaded last time, but several items didn't load, and one said it loaded, then said it didn't. It looked exactly like this (after listing that a bunch of drivers were loaded): Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\NDProxy.SYS Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\NDProxy.SYS Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\flpydisk.sys Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\MODEMCSA.sys Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\usbhub.sys Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\vdmindvd.sys Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\lbrtfdc.SYS Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Sfloppy.SYS Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\i2omgmt.SYS Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Changer.SYS Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Cdaudio.SYS Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Fs_Rec.SYS Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Null.SYS Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\Beep.SYS Did not load driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\kbdhid.sys The other item that didn't load was: Did not load driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\PCIDump.SYS I'm not even going to go into the NIC card issue until I get some advice on what's causing things to again go screwy here. On a couple of reboot attempts, the machine hung up on the initial (black) XP screen immediately after BIOS startup, even after I selected Safe Mode or Boot Logging (which apparently means that the boot log doesn't get written for that occurrence). I currently can get into Safe Mode, and the PC will get all the way to the XP desktop, where it hangs up after about 20-30 seconds. I have no guarantees, however, that this will be a consistent performance, based on last night's frustration. I really think this will get better–I just don't know why this keeps occurring or how to remedy it. Thanks for your help and patience in advance–Tom vonHatten

When you pulled and reinserted the card, was the computer unplugged? If not, you may have permanently damaged the card, or slot, or beyond! The ATX Form Factor Standard calls for +5Vsb standby voltages to be applied across several points on the motherboard, including the PCI bus, when the system is powered off, but the cord is still attached. This allows for such features as the front panel power switch, wake on lan, wake on modem, wake on keyboard. Not removing all power before adding or removing is a common cause for hardware failure, and why many motherboard makers include LEDs on the motherboard. The exception to this is for those PSUs that have an optional Master Power Switch on the back of the supply. The +5Vsb is removed if that switch is set to OFF. However, this assumes the PSU has not failed and has exposed potentially deadly voltages to the computer, or user. Since we already know there are $10 generic PSUs out there, perhaps made by a child in a slave-labor camp in some Chinese or African village - I do not advise trusting your computer, or your life to $.25 part. Remember, anything that plugs into the wall can kill.

A 6' Ethernet cable is very low-tech and cheap, and damages easily - replace the one between your PC and router.

If no permanent damage to the card or slot occurred, I would uninstall the driver again and power down and unplug the computer, and router too. Remove the card. Boot the computer and install the driver manually, then power down, unplug and reinstall the card. Power up the Router and wait for it to sync with your Cable/DSL modem, then connect the new Ethernet cable between the Router and PC. Plug in the computer (set Master Switch to on, if equipped) and wait a few seconds - If LEDs on the NIC are they lit? Do you see the NIC appear on the router? (A good sign if you do, don't worry if you don't, yet). Boot up the PC. Now you should see the PC's LEDs and NIC on the Router, and if the PC is set to obtain an IP by DHCP, it will in a few seconds. Then see what happens.

If still a problem, can you ping, 127.0.0.1?
Open a DOS Prompt and enter: ipconfig /all - you should see 192.168.something.something for your computer. Do you?

With Dell products, I never go by the labels on the chips or motherboard because experience has shown that Dell likely has modified it in some way to make it proprietary - therefore, only use Dell drivers for Dell products.

Digerati: I remembered to pull the plug (literally) on the PC before i opened it up and removed the card, and before I reinstalled it. I also figure that the Ethernet cable is OK–when i restart the PC, both the router and the NIOC indicate that there's a connection between them. this indication goes away when the operating system boot starts. I do have a couple of spare cables, though, and can change them out if needed. When I get home, i'll take the steps you've suggested, and report. Thanks–TvH

It's possible you may have loosened something else while removing and inserting NICs. Check all cards, cables, power connectors and memory, make sure they are firmly seated.

All: Here's what I've done on PC4, and what's happened as a result: 1) Shut off and unplugged machine, removed ASOUND LAN card (NIC?) 2) Reconnected power and rebooted PC–system came up. 3) Installed new driver supplied from ASOUND website–install utility wouldn't let me do so without the card in place. 4) Rebooted PC–system hung up at desktop screen in about 30 seconds. 5) Shut PC off, unplugged it, removed card, rebooted–system came up. 6) Reinstalled LAN card, reconnected power and rebooted machine–system came up. 7) Ran ping test to 127.0.0.1–100% (4 sent / 4 received / 0 ms) 8) Rebooted router, and reconnected LAN card to router–no success. LEDs on LAN card flaching slowly (about 1 every 2 sec) and no indication on router that connection was made. 9) Swapped Ethernet cables–no change. No connection apparent. 10) Checked ipconfig: IP address: 169.254.xxx.xxx Subnet mask: 255.255.0.0 No gateway 11) Checked in Network Connections: IP/subnet the same here as in ipconfig Properties set up for card are to automatically obtain IP address and DNS server address automatically Driver is RTL8139.sys 12) Looked to see where RTL8139 resides–it's in the SP2 cabinet, so it's a Microsoft-supplied driver, meaning it recognized the device and loaded a driver. The Device Manager says that the card is working properly. I have another ASOUND card in the PC I'm using right now–but it's not in use, as the PC also has a built-in NIC that is working just fine. I checked its IP and subnet, and it's exactly the same as the one I've been unsuccessfully working with. How do I make XP let this thing work? I have a different (and new) LAN card (a LinkSys EtherFast 10/100 PCI adapter, model LNE100TX). If I have to, I'll use it instead, and hope for the best–assuming that a PCI slot is a PCI slot is a PCI slot. The ASOUND had two tabs that plugged in to the slot, a short one and a long one. The picture on the box shows a short one, a long one, and a short one, meaning that one of the short ones isn't being plugged in to anything–it's for a PCI 2.2 slot, if that helps. I don't want to open the box and find out that I wasted my money on something that isn't going to be usable–I may already have that. This is a lot to digest–sorry. –TvH

Sure sounds like the ASOUND NIC is dodgey. Definitely give the Linksys NIC a try, see if there is any change.

All: I just found out that the I can use the new network card–it's a "universal" PCI 2.2 card that can power its buffers either with 3.3 or 5.0 V. The short tab on one side is for 3.3 volts, the other for 5.0 volts. I found the PCI specs online in a PDF file, downloaded it, and skimmed through it and found the info I was looking for. –TvH

IP address: 169.254.xxx.xxx
Subnet mask: 255.255.0.0
No gateway

This is not right - I think if you look in your router tables, that is (or was) the IP assigned to your "gateway" and yes, you have one - it's the Cable/DSL Modem. This means your computer is not getting an IP assignment from your router.

If you enter: ipconfig /? you will see options to release and renew. You might mess with them a bit.

Oh, NIC stands for network interface card. That is the proper term. LAN card came about through the marketing side of some NIC maker, because it sounded better - or so I suspect.

I went to ipconfig /release, and it set the IP address to 0.0.0.0 I then tried renew, and it timed out waiting for info from the DHCP server (the router, I guess), Rebooted the system, and hung up at the desktop again. Powered down, unplugged, removed card, replugged, and restarted–system came up. Powered down, unplugged, inserted card, not connected to router, replugged and restarted–system came up. IP address/subnet mask back to 169.254.98.219 and 255.255.0.0 Card is still not connected to router. –TvH

Oh–I checked the NIC on the machine I'm using for Internet access: IP 192.168.1.101 Subnet 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway 192.168.1.1 I figure the other machine's NIC would be similar, if it was working right. –TvH

Yeah, the other machine would be something like 192.168.1.100 or 1.102.

All: I went ahead and swapped the ASOUND NIC for the new LinkSys NIC. It went active during the bootup–no problems. I loaded a revised driver from the LinkSys-provided CD–no problem. The router and NIC both indicated I had a good connection. I'm updating XP to SP3 as we speak. I guess that either the ASOUND NIC card or the drivers (or the method of loading the driver from the ASOUND download) are insufficient to cope with XP. Either way, things are fairly happy for the moment. I'll reboot after finishing up the XP update–I'll let you all knwo how it turns out. –TvH

Persistence pays off! Good job getting it working. I'd put my money on a bad Asound NIC.

All: It's been a couple of days since I swapped out the NIC, and all is well. Zone Alarm and AVG Free are working just fine, and I've loaded both Spybot and Ad-Aware and have run them, as well. Performance is good, and I've got all the USB hardware hooked back in. Once my wife handles starting the email back up, things should be even better–except that in all this, the mail box and address book got totally hosed (Sigh……I'll learn how to back up that stuff, since she doesn't). Thanks again for all the help and comment. It paid off. –Tom vonHatten