Can't Find NF7-S2 Onboard NIC Driver

FormFactor

Whats up fellaz!

I have installed Win XP Media Center Edition 2005 on a box wih an NF7-S2 board and I can't seem to get the onboard network card up and running for the life of me. In device manager it shows up under 'Other Devices' as a 'Ethernet Controller' with a question mark icon instead of a network card icon.

I have installed the latest nVidia Forceware chipset drivers, as well as the following from this link at abits website.

The Realtek Fast Ethernet LAN Driver

VIA Fast Ethernet LAN Driver (which didn't make much sense but at this point worth a try).

The one labled " IC Plus Family Gigabit LAN Driver" is a dead link .

Does anyone know where I can find the exact driver I need for this thing? I no longer have the cd that came with the board.

Also does the bootable rom have to be enabled in BIOS for this thing to work right? I ran it on XP pro with it disabled so I wouldnt think it would matter.

This problem is kicking my ass, and any help would be greatly apreciated! I have even reformatted and reinstalled windows.

And if I cant get this NIC working in XP MCE 2005, can anyone suggest an easy, no fuss, install the hardware and windows autometically sees it and installs the drivers NIC for XP MCE 2005, ill just run to Worse Buy amd grab a new one if need be.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Omega65

Abit-USA.com NF7-S2 Driver Page

FormFactor

Omega65 wrote:

Abit-USA.com NF7-S2 Driver Page

Yea, I tried them but none of them are working. I included that link in my original post.

bothered

Silly question I know but, is it turned on in the bios?

FormFactor

It is, but the bootabale ROM feature is disabled.

Also, I tried a Netgear PCI card and my BIOS saw it as 5 "Network Controller". Thats very strange...

But I have decided to just buy a new card. Can anyone recommend one that Win XP MCE 2005 will just see. No manual driver install?

ryko

ok, i have the same board and i had the same problem.

you need to look at the I/O ports on the motherboard, specifically the top of the usb/ethernet port cluster. there should be a little sticker with some numbers on it. this is your MAC address for the NIC. you need to enter it manually somewhere in your connection profile, but i can't remeber exactly where right now.

somebody else will come along and point you in the right direction. there was another board (an MSI, i think) that had similar problems.

FormFactor

ryko wrote:

ok, i have the same board and i had the same problem.

you need to look at the I/O ports on the motherboard, specifically the top of the usb/ethernet port cluster. there should be a little sticker with some numbers on it. this is your MAC address for the NIC. you need to enter it manually somewhere in your connection profile, but i can't remeber exactly where right now.

somebody else will come along and point you in the right direction. there was another board (an MSI, i think) that had similar problems.

Good point Ryko!

Hmm ya know, I did notice under advanced options for hardware address it said "not configured", whic I did see as strange. I guess I could also concievably put ANY mac addy in there... Ill give it a shot... can you tell me exactly what your NIC is listed as under device manager? Ill go DL the same driver... Or if you have the driver, could you post it?

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

ryko

unfortunately, i don't have the board up and running...it is sitting in static wrap inside of it's box ready for sale.

i know you have to use the number on top of the ethernet/usb cluster in order to get it to work correctly. when i had this board setup for testing, the onboard NIC was not recognized. i put in a spare pci 10/100 card, got online and searched for the solution. found out you had to manually enter in the specific MAC address. each MAC address on each board is different, so you have to use the one found on your NIC.

good luck!