just built a new system a week ago. everything was up and running fine. Yesterday my network became 'unavailable'. Here are system specs and the things I've tried Epox 9NPA ultra mobo (nforce4 ultra chipset) athlon64 3000+ 2x512 corsair pc3200 XFX geforce 6600GT 2x80G WD in raid 0 check/disable nvidia and windows firewall ----no difference check cables and router connections------------no difference examine ethernet settings---no differnce or stops responding have windows repair connection---reports unable to complete ipconfig release/renew---- leaves blinking cursor nothing happens use system restore to known good date---- no difference remove adapter from device manager-----stops responding during removal, never completes reinstall drivers from mobo CD----- install hangs when it reaches ethernet driver. Epox site has no downloads listed for that motherboard and i am running most current bios (remember it WAS working for a week) I'm out of ideas and am starting to think the hardware is toast... anyone else?
1) Can you at any point ping the loopback address 127.0.0.1 ? 2) Do you have a spare Hard Drive? - if so, remove the one that's in and do a quick install of xp + drivers on the spare drive. That should give you something definitive whether it is netwrok hardware or if windows has crawled up its own bottom and messed your tcpip stack or something. HD can be small old and slow, you aren't going to live on it, merely see if your hardware responds to a fresh install without SP2 for example. If it does work you could then add bits in slowly til it falls over, then go back and fix you original install.
Thanks for the reply (to date myself a little, my first comp actually was a vic 20) I can ping the loopback address. however I don't know how to interpret that. what does that tell me? as far as another HDD goes I'd have to look around in the attic there is probably something i can use but nothing that I'm positive is working. nothing like complicating things with questionable hardware! I'm more likely to have an extra NIC laying around, I'll try that soon as i get time. I have noticed a couple other problems too, maybe a reinstall is the way to go, hard to imagine what could get so screwed up in 10 days. I'm starting to wonder about the bios a little. the cpu seems to be detected right but the monitoring software (Epox USDM) is showing the Vcore at 1.5 when i believe the athlon64 3000+ 939 winchester is supposed to be 1.4. The bios overvolt is set to 'off' for cpu/chipset/and dimm. anyway time for bed.
the loopback address is indicative of the software side of things working right. It does not test drivers or hardware. Hopefully this focuses a little where the problem is. The voltages don't seem very far off, I would push that down the priority list. I would boot into safe mode and attempt to erradicate all signs of it from the machine before rebooting and redetecting. You may also be able to disable it in the BIOS. At least one boot without it connected would help. A fresh install would certainll help though...
Those ones with Nvidia Firewalls cause a lot of problems from what I can see, make sure it's disabled and you've updated your drivers for your motherboard etc to the latest available. Any chipset drivers etc need to be installed to.
Well, Aint it always the simple solution that works? Disabling the Nvidia Lan Controller in bios, letting windows boot, re-enabling the controller did the trick. picked up the network address with no problems. Thanks for all the suggestions. If the problem shows up again, I'll be back for sure.
