Failing NIC?

[Crypto]

I have 3 PCs networked via a SMC Barricade router, Two PCs have SMC NICs one has built in LAN.

I've been getting intermittent coms failures on one PC and I can see that the LED on the NIC goes off for a second or two at apparently random intervals. This bourne out by downloading from the internet, sometimes very slow and then a burst of activity.

I swapped NICs and sure enough the symptons swapped with it.

Easy I thought, get a new NIC. Got a Linksys NIC from PC World (duh!) swapped with the faulty NIC and...... exactly the same problem. :banghead:

What's going on? I'm now confused as to whether I've got a hardware or software problem.

Any thoughts?

Cheers

Crypto
:smokin:

[Lord_Night]

Ok first card was faulty and messed up your tcp/ip on both machine would be my first idea.
TCP /IP stack and Winsocks need to be rebuilt.
Internet Connection Firewall needs to be either turned off or reconfigured to allow incoming echo requests.
Inetwiz should be run again.

try these, I have seen where bad chips on nic cards have reset teh tcp/ip and winsock area so the next card didnt work either..

hope it helps

[Crypto]

Thanks for the thought Lord_Night.

I negelected to mention that I swapped the faulty NIC back to the original PC and the fault returned with it. The second PC got its original NIC back again and worked properly again. :hrm:

I seem to be talking myself in to a hardware problem.

Cheers
Crypto

[Lord_Night]

Hmmm yea weird,
I will try and see if I can come up with another answer

but if you switched em back and your back at square one...
dang if I know right now.....

[Crypto]

My thoughts are now running along the line of;

New NIC, straight out of the box has exactly the same fault that the original NIC developed. Bizarre but what else.......?

Cheers

Crypto

[Lord_Night]

well if second box is now working fine..
put new nic in that box and see waht happens that would eliminate that.

[Crypto]

Thoughts now running along this line:

New NIC, straight out of the box has the same fault that the original NIC has developed. Bizzare but what else?

Do I buy yet another NIC?

Cheers

Crypto

Edit:
Sorry, double post

I've tried both NICs in both boxes, no joy

[Crypto]

Oh ***********

Bought another NIC

Same problem, keeps dropping out and hence very slow downloads.

Decided to update the firmware in my router and now it's completely stuffed :bawling:

Can't communicate with the routerm must have been the wrong firmware.

Is my router now U/S ?

Feel like crawling away to have a good cry :bawling:

Any help please

Crypto

[Crypto]

Well, it would appear that nobody else has a clue about this problem here either.

Problem's now fixed, but I had to do it the hard way :banghead:

Two new NICs and one new router seems to have solved the problem, but I don't like throwing money at a problem until it goes away. Still like to know what the root problem was. :grr:

Cheers

Crypto

[Straight_Man]

Um, builtin NICs need to be disabled to get a card to work, otherwise the builtin and the card can get exactly the same resources assinged and you will get that kind of thing on abox with both enabled that will curl your hair and toenails with frustration until you get the card the right drivers and resources.

SOME Routers can be reflashed by methods that are best explained by tech support, in your case SMC tech support. Some MFRs can ship out a new CMOS module as an FRU (Field Replaceable Unit) part also, with a tested flash burn on it. Others want the router shipped to them or an authorized repair place, then they will in essence replace the CMOS module that holds the programming that gives you your webterm interface. I would say contact SMC's tech support via email for starters. The Barricades can be very unhappy with Novell 2000 compatible NICS, I think they work with Intel NICs though (have not tested that myself, have had several folks I know use them with SMC Barricades, though, and then tell me that combo works).

[Thrax]

They don't need to be disabled at all; that very concept is an archaic relic of 486/Pentium/Pentium 2 computing. There haven't been broadly-classifiable resource conflicts between onboard/offboard network cards in about 6 years. Please review your information.

[Crypto]

All is happy in the Crypto household. :)

I've managed to configure the new Belkin router for port forwarding and have a green in my current BT download.

Thanks for the responses Lord Knight & Straight Man (John D ?) as it happens, the box with the problem did not have onboard NIC so that wasn't an issue.

I guess for the value of a new router, it wouldn't be worth sending the old SMC Barricade back for re-flashing.

Cheers

Crypto

:smokin: