Everytime I reinstall windows, my LAN fails

[Nosada]

Hey everyone,

I was recently forced to reinstall Windows (XP if it should matter) due to having bought a new HD.

After installing the motherboard's drivers however, my onboard LAN refuses to connect to my motorola cable modem. The cable has some wear and tear, so I plugged the cable directly into a second computer. Internet directly connects, allowing me to make this post.

The motherboard is a DFI LP UT D, and has been doing its job very stable for the last year or so. Since the reinstall however, neither of the nVidia or Marvell LANs is able to make a connection to the cable modem. Both give "Limited or no connection available" errors.

Is anyone able to tell me what could be causing this, as I've been working on this issue for close to 36 hours now. I'm pretty much going bonkers here, having swapped in and out pretty much every other component in the PC (RAM, GPU, HD, PSU, ... basically everything except CPU and MoBo)

Thanks in advance for any advice,
Nosada

 

[g-paw]

If you haven't done so, recycle the modem. Turn off the computer, unplug the modem and router if you're using one. Give it a minute then turn on the modem, another minute and turn on the router, another minute and turn on the PC. If this doesn't do it, see if there is firmware for the router. If you have a firewall turn it off.

 

[Nosada]

Tried recycling the modem to no avail. No firewalls running atm. There shouldn't be any reason it's doing this, yet it is.

I'm at a loss

 

[g-paw]

Have you downloaded the latest LAN drivers? Have you tried a different modem? I know you said that the one in question worked on another computer but you never know? You could also buy a LAN card, I've seen them for around $10. If it doesn't work with the most recent drivers but works with another LAN card, you know what the problem is.

 

[irrsh]

Are there any drivers that came with your modem? you might try that. Search for drivers for your cable as well.

 

[The_Interloper]

Also, no Service Pack, no connection.

What IP are you getting anyway? 169.x.x.x

 

[grant8844]

Hi Nosada

Widows XP has a "feature" with mobos that have more than one ethernet/lan connections. If your mobo has two ethernet connections and you connect only one of them, Win XP will NOT activate your network connections (even the one that IS connected) because it "sees a network cable that is unplugged"

The solution to this is to go to control panel, network connections. Right click on the connection that is "unplugged" and select 'disable'. Close out of the control panel. Reboot and the 'plugged' in side of your network will now work.

I have experienced this "feature of windows XP" on three different systems.

Hope this suggestion works for you!!

Grant

 

[edmetalhead]

I feel for you man. Last time I reinstalled XP my LAN stopped working also. It took me weeks to find the problem.

To fix it I had to uninstall and then reinstall the QoS Packet Scheduler (right click Local Area Connection -> Properties). Though your problem sounds a bit different to mine.

Good Luck!

 

[irrsh]

I have seen this too but it is hit or miss for which motherboards it effects.

 

[sunangel]

if u were running @ Asus bored u not h4v pr0bl3ms. Asus XOXOX!

 

[jkflipflop98]

Hi Nosada

Widows XP has a "feature" with mobos that have more than one ethernet/lan connections. If your mobo has two ethernet connections and you connect only one of them, Win XP will NOT activate your network connections (even the one that IS connected) because it "sees a network cable that is unplugged"

The solution to this is to go to control panel, network connections. Right click on the connection that is "unplugged" and select 'disable'. Close out of the control panel. Reboot and the 'plugged' in side of your network will now work.

I have experienced this "feature of windows XP" on three different systems.

Hope this suggestion works for you!!

Grant

There's your answer. Good job grant.

 

[axilon]

I had an old DFI board that would just drop both the lans... and I would have to restart (yea i plugged em both into the router) and eventually i gave up 15 bucks for a gigabit NIC and all was well, and is still well..

 

[Nosada]

Sorry for the late reply everyone, stupid Europe and it's stupid timezone forced me to have some sleep

Also, no Service Pack, no connection.

What IP are you getting anyway? 169.x.x.x

I have installed SP2 using a redist file. The IP i'm getting is: 169.254.78.112 with subnetmask: 255.255.0.0. The second LAN gets IP: 192.168.0.1 with subnetmask: 255.255.255.0.

Hi Nosada

Widows XP has a "feature" with mobos that have more than one ethernet/lan connections. If your mobo has two ethernet connections and you connect only one of them, Win XP will NOT activate your network connections (even the one that IS connected) because it "sees a network cable that is unplugged"

The solution to this is to go to control panel, network connections. Right click on the connection that is "unplugged" and select 'disable'. Close out of the control panel. Reboot and the 'plugged' in side of your network will now work.

I have experienced this "feature of windows XP" on three different systems.

Hope this suggestion works for you!!

Grant

I was very happy when I saw this solution, cause it looked like a winner. Sadly, it didn't turn out so well I tried both disabling and actually hooking the network up, neither gave any positive effect. The connection between the host and client PC's however, DID work, so I swapped the internet connection to the other LANport. Strangely enough, I got the same result. Whatever connection is set to connect to the network. This makes me think it's a driver/software issue instead of hardware.

I feel for you man. Last time I reinstalled XP my LAN stopped working also. It took me weeks to find the problem.

To fix it I had to uninstall and then reinstall the QoS Packet Scheduler (right click Local Area Connection -> Properties). Though your problem sounds a bit different to mine.

Good Luck!

Would you mind explaining how to do this? I know I'm probably grabbing at straws with this, but this problem is getting thoroughly annoying and I'm pretty much willing to try anything at this point.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Glad I found such a helpful bunch of people :trophy:

EDIT: Just installed a US robotics NIC ... Same problem :roll: ... This is getting kinda silly. I installed the NIC in the client pc, logged onto the internet, shared it, and now the onboard NICs of the original host refuse to make a connection ... All I can say is: WTF?

 

[irrsh]

I had some problems with a dFI board a while back and when I called their tech support I found out that it was one person in idaho.

Found this in a DFI forum.....Try it.


"Disable the 'Marvell' LAN in BIOS and use the Nvidia one.........disable MAC Address also....."

 

[The_Interloper]

I have installed SP2 using a redist file. The IP i'm getting is: 169.254.78.112 with subnetmask: 255.255.0.0. The second LAN gets IP: 192.168.0.1 with subnetmask: 255.255.255.0.

I'm faced with this problem everyday at work.

If you have a cable modem, disconnect the cable from your modem.
Proceed to do an ipconfig/release in your command prompt only when you have verified that your connection lights on your modem have went out.

Now do an ipconfig/renew while the cable is still disconnected. you should get a 192.168.x.x

Connect your cable back to the modem and wait for your lights to sync up.

Now do an ipconfig/release and then an ipconfig/renew again and you should have a valid IP.

 

[g-paw]

I have installed SP2 using a redist file. The IP i'm getting is: 169.254.78.112 with subnetmask: 255.255.0.0. The second LAN gets IP: 192.168.0.1 with subnetmask: 255.255.255.0.

I may be way off base but that first address, especially the subnetmask, doesn't look right, I think this is the modem address. The second one 192.168.0.1 looks like you computer address. Every time I've ever seen the 255 subnet it has always been 255.255.255.0

 

[edmetalhead]

To uninstall the Qos Packet Scheduler in XP:

Control Panel -> Network Connections -> Right Click Your LAN Connection -> Click Properties.

In the 'General' tab you will see a box titled "This connection uses the following items:"

Click on the "QoS Packet Scheduler". Then click the "Uninstall" button below.

If I recall correctly, it was automatically reinstalled after I uninstalled it.

If it does not automatically reinstall, from the same window that you did the uninstall:

Click Install, click Service, and then click Add.
Click QoS Packet Scheduler, and then click OK.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Make sure to disable the unused nic at the very least, also, delete any bridge that is exsisting between the nic and possible a firewire connection.


Go into network settings and make sure everything is set to DHCP and then go to run->cmd: ipconfig /release
then type ipconfig /renew

see what happens.

 

[Nosada]

I have already tried to do ipconfig/release and ipconfig/renew. When I do /release, I get: "The IP-address for the adapter LAN-connection is already released".
For /renew, I get:"An error has occured during the renewal of this interface: LAN connection.
Cannot make contact with the DHCP server. The request was expired".

I'm doing all this on my brother's PC and he just admitted that he first encountered this problem after he had installed a new cooler on his motherboard :roll: . Is it possible he might have damaged something in the process?

 

[irrsh]

Hey did you give that stuff I got off of DFI forum a try?

 

[Nosada]

MAC adress was already disabled. Disabling Marvell and wireless had no effect.

 

[irrsh]

well crap..... :?

 

[Nosada]

Yeah.. that's about what I've been thinking for the past 3 days

 

[blue68f100]

It almost sounds like you have FW blocking every thing. A lot of the newer MB have builtin FW. Disable them, some in BIOS, some have software (un-install).

Then I had a one Gforce chip set that was very picky on the bios and lan drivers.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

I have already tried to do ipconfig/release and ipconfig/renew. When I do /release, I get: "The IP-address for the adapter LAN-connection is already released".
For /renew, I get:"An error has occured during the renewal of this interface: LAN connection.
Cannot make contact with the DHCP server. The request was expired".

I'm doing all this on my brother's PC and he just admitted that he first encountered this problem after he had installed a new cooler on his motherboard :roll: . Is it possible he might have damaged something in the process?

Have you done a repair? Just checking.
2nd... sounds like you still have a lease on the router. Can you reset the router to factory? it that is ez, you should try it.