AT MY WITS END WITH GA-EP35-DS3L (NIC PROBLEM)

[jcbutta]

i recently reformatted my hard drive to install windows xp from scratch. i have a gigabyte ga-ep35-ds3l motherboard and am running windows xp home sp3. the problem is windows does not show a network adapter installed. i was able to download the driver (motherboard_driver_lan_realtek_8111.exe) but to no avail. when i go to the device manager all it shows are:

direct parallel
wan miniport (ip)
wan miniport (ip) - packet scheduler miniport
wan miniport (l2tp)
wan miniport (ppoe)
wan miniport (pptp)

i have been working on this for 2 days straight but i could not find any answers.

if anyone could help me solve this problem, i would really appreciate it. thanks in advance.

 

[bilbat]

Ackk! This is the third weird LAN failure in three weeks (well, one of 'em may have been a lightning strike - I guess that's not that weird - what's weird is the building wasn't set afire!); you might try starting with these, just for some background things to check/try; I will do a more comprehensive search and get back with some questions, and, hopefully, some things to attempt...

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/260814-30-help-ds3l-onboard-ethernet
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261298-30-find-onboard-gigabyte

Bill

 

[jcbutta]

thanks for the quick reply. i am checking those links as we speak.

 

[bilbat]

I've got one quick thought, offhand - did you do the whole set of driver installs off your GB driver disk? The reason I ask, is that when you use the 'auto' driver installer, it is 'sequenced' properly - some drivers are required to be installed before other hardware can be 'discovered', and then have its driver requested/installed... The Energy-Saver thing is a buggy PITA, so I always uncheck it, and then tell the driver disk to 'go'! The machine (at least in my case - a DS5) will reboot, I believe four times during the process for Xp, and three times for Vista.

If you look at the system block diagram for your board on page eight, this 'sequencing' will become clear - everything is connected through the MCH (P35), so, obviously, it has to 'hook up' first, then the ICH9 - these are usually handled in one Intel chipset driver installation, in that order; then, the audio codec, the jMicron SATA controller, the LAN chip, the USB controller, and everything else 'hung off' the ICH can first be 'discovered', and their respective drivers installed. You can always let the GB disk do the first install, then let MS Update take care of getting the newer drivers it can find, then load the latest versions of the ones it misses manually...

 

[jerfle]

Just save yourself the headache, go to Walmart and buy a $20 network card.

 

[bilbat]

Or to NewEgg, and buy a six dollar one...