[Bumdrew]

I am trying to install an ethernet card into a friends PC so that he can hardwire himself to his wi-fi router. The trouble is whatever card I put in there it will get recognised as an ethernet device, I then try to install the drivers and it accepts, looks like it gets halfway through put them into the system then has an error.

I have tried 3 different cards, one with an IC+chipset, one with a D-Link 530TX chipset and a Realtek card.

All perform in the smae manner?

I've tried completeley removing/uninstalling anything to do with netowrking that may cause the problem but no joy.

I've also tried every PCI slot on the board, doesn't seem to be an isse with those because I am able to run the system using a PCI graphics card in any of the slots

The PC is running windows XP SP2.

[Bumdrew]

Bump

[fairnooks]

Sometimes (may not be the case here) you have to install the drivers first, power down, install the card and power back up and let the system go through the auto discovery, search and install of the drivers. Such is the case with Realtek RTL8169/8110 Ethernet on XP systems, which refused to recognize any method I used where the card was installed first (the way I've always installed PCI cards before).

[dustyjay]

Usually Windows XP SP2 will not need any additional drivers for a Network Interface Card (NIC). I say usually because I did have to install a driver for my on board nic on a computer designed to run Vista that I down Graded to XP.

[fairnooks]

Yes, I personally didn't have to install any drivers to make the Realtek Ethernet cards work in Vista, I just had to update to the latest version of the drivers online to make it work correctly.

[Rich-M]

I would bet you have a badly corrupted Windows install and probably need to clean install XP. It's either that or a bad motherboard.

[dustyjay]

With any real specs on the computer, it is hard to tell what you are dealing with here. From the sounds of it it doesnt have an onboard Network Interface, that being said, it sounds like an older computer or the onboard NIC is not working. You could try to do a repair install of XP. Here is a site that has the instructions. http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm If this is a computer with preinstalled windows such as a big box system this wont work. Also if you choose to do a repair installation you HAVE to use the original Windows Installation Disc for you installation of windows.

[Bumdrew]

Ran a completeley fresh install of XP into the machine, put the realtek card in that I know should auto detect, it detects, finds drivers, then half way through it just fails. At this stage I have not installed anything but windows. I then tried installing the latest realtek drivers without the card in then powered down as suggested by Fairnooks (thank you), the same problem occurs.

I installed the latest chipset driver just incase this was affecting the issue. no joy.

I then tried installing the pci graphics driver to double confirm PCI slots are working ok. Installed fine.

Tried the IC+ and d-link again to see if these would now install....
nope...WTF!!!???!!!!??

Might eat this computer...

[shinybeast]

If you haven't, you could try putting the PCI graphics adapter into the PCI slot where you want to put the NIC and see if graphics adapter works in that slot.

[dustyjay]

Have you tried Installing the card then installing windows with the card already in the computer?

[Bumdrew]

yeah lets make posts without reading the beginning of the thread, i love that idea.

[shinybeast]

Sorry, about that. What is the mobo/computer? I can't think of anything but motherboard. It sounds like you've investigated things pretty thoroughly. One thing you may want to try is creating/booting a live Knoppix and seeing what it does with the card. It could provide more info (maybe not all that useful though). Doesn't really sound like an OS issue though.

[jazz3000]

I'm just wondering what your bios is set to? Is it possible you need to update on Microsoft after reinstalling? Jazz

[Bumdrew]

What is my BIOS set to??!?? which bit of the BIOS are you talIking about? the bootorder, lol, or maybe the q-fan controls? While I'm checking what the BIOS is set to I'm gonna hold down alt+f4 to make it load quicker lmao.

I have flashed the BIOS to the latest version though and ALL settings are as tey should be.

And as for needing to "update on microsoft" all windows updates are installed including sp3. And these were installed via wi-fi.

Er...JuJu68...whats a knoppix ?