XP Network Adapter Missing

[puppetworx]

My brother's XP SP3 PC shows no network (ethernet) adapters when it first boots up, after a restart though the adapter works fine and shows up in Device Manager/Network Connections.

I think this must be a driver issue, any ideas?

[potatochobit]

is this a wireless adapter?
card could be close to failing but try and reinstall the drivers
you might try to move the PCI slot too

[puppetworx]

No it's an Ethernet chip on the motherboard not a card. It's really bugging me. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling drivers and checking necessary services are running all to no avail. I'd better try a LiveCD on it.

[Starfalcon]

Do you have it set as a boot option in the bios? They can time out during a cold boot as they are waiting for a response.

[axeman]

If it doesn't show up in the device manager at all, *and* you didn't recently monkey with the BIOS settings or install new hardware, it probably is something flakey with the motherboard. I've seen otherwise fine systems where the onboard NIC goes to the Silicon Valley in the sky, ie it will be detected, but no amount of driver wrangling will get it to work, or it thinks there is no cable plugged in, yatta yatta. That said, I had an old MSI board that the on-board NIC would disappear and reappear, and it was some sort of weird grounding issue (ground loop, noisy ground plane, ) that caused it to act up, but I can't remember how I solved it other than it was obviously something that led me to conclude there was a grounding problem. If it's a crab-based NIC I'd forget about it and toss a different adapter in there.

[notfred]

If it's a crab-based NIC I'd forget about it and toss a different an Intel adapter in there.

Fixed that for you

[Captain Ned]

If it's a crab-based NIC I'd forget about it and toss a different an Intel adapter in there.

Fixed that for you

It's how I fixed my Crab-related NIC issues.

[just brew it!]

If it's a crab-based NIC I'd forget about it and toss a different an Intel adapter in there.

Fixed that for you

It's how I fixed my Crab-related NIC issues.

The Crab is unfairly disrespected these days IMO. Yes they had issues in the past; but lately they seem to have cleaned up their act quite a bit. I've used a number of Rosewill Crab-based gigabit NICs to upgrade older systems (which only had 100 mbit onboard) to gigabit. "Cheap and cheerful", as the saying goes.

[Captain Ned]

Well, I am talking about a mobo I bought in 2007, which was right in the heart of the Crab's bad days (coming from someone who still remembers Darth VIA).

[bthylafh]

You could try grabbing the latest driver straight from Realtek. Sometimes that has fixed problems for me.

[just brew it!]

Well, I am talking about a mobo I bought in 2007, which was right in the heart of the Crab's bad days (coming from someone who still remembers Darth VIA).

Yeah, I still maintain a few VIA-based systems. IIRC the wife and daughters still have VIA-based desktops, and my home router runs on an old VIA-based board. A couple of the old test servers here at work are VIA based as well. The thing about VIA-based boards was that they were really hit-or-miss. Some models were fine (e.g. the MSI K8MM-V was a terrific little budget mobo back in the day), while others were basically a train wreck on a PCB.

[Captain Ned]

Shuffled the last VIA box (MSI KT400A) to the local recycle place a couple of weeks ago. I agree with your observation that proper mobo design (MSI in both of our exemplars) went a long way to nullifying Darth VIA.

More on the topic: I have been conditioned over time to inherently distrust on-mobo NIC setups as I've had issues with every mobo NIC I've owned (sample size is 3, so the confidence level is barely above random). The interesting part of that is that the integrated NICs on mobos I've bought for desktop builds have always given me trouble, yet the NICs integrated into the myriad of laptops I've used in my work life have never burped once.

[just brew it!]

Shuffled the last VIA box (MSI KT400A) to the local recycle place a couple of weeks ago. I agree with your observation that proper mobo design (MSI in both of our exemplars) went a long way to nullifying Darth VIA.

It could very well be that MSI was the only one of the major mobo vendors who really knew how to tame VIA's chipsets. Over the years I've dealt with VIA-based boards from several mobo vendors -- MSI, DFI, Abit, FIC, and Asus (normally my brand of choice). MSI seemed to be the only one of these whose VIA-based boards were consistently free of annoying quirks.

More on the topic: I have been conditioned over time to inherently distrust on-mobo NIC setups as I've had issues with every mobo NIC I've owned (sample size is 3, so the confidence level is barely above random). The interesting part of that is that the integrated NICs on mobos I've bought for desktop builds have always given me trouble, yet the NICs integrated into the myriad of laptops I've used in my work life have never burped once.

The only serious onboard NIC issues I can recall ever having were with nVidia; and the fix was easy once you knew what it was (uninstall the piece of crap firewall package that came bundled with the drivers).

[Captain Ned]

The only serious onboard NIC issues I can recall ever having were with nVidia; and the fix was easy once you knew what it was (uninstall the piece of crap firewall package that came bundled with the drivers).

Before I dropped an Intel NIC in the box (couldn't find a suitably-priced 3C509) the Crab chip on my Abit IP35 Pro flashed connectivity error messages about every 10 seconds. A nuke from orbit didn't fix it, nor did the latest drivers from Dr. Zoidberg.

[puppetworx]

Thanks for the replies guys. I checked BIOS first, then uninstalled the driver and reinstalled the latest one from Mobo manufacturer's website (haven't tried direct from Realtek though) then I checked services. I'll be back round there soon and see if it works okay with a Linux LiveCD. It's an XP machine about 2 years from last install so I'll try SFC as well and SpinRite the Hard Drive and anything else I can think of. I'll do a fresh install if all else fails (it's about time) - I expect that to be painful and then once I've done all that I'll wonder why I didn't just buy a new NIC. But I'll probably be satisfied if I solve it. What a sadist.

[puppetworx]

You could try grabbing the latest driver straight from Realtek. Sometimes that has fixed problems for me.

Just to let you know that fixed the problem, thanks!