TheVille

Hello Villuns, I have run into an odd problem.

A few months ago I got a new Sound Card. I powered everything down and installed it. When the computer booted, my on-board ethernet stopped working. When I removed the sound card and rebooted, ethernet now works fine.
I set the card on the shelf to deal with at a later date.

Fast forward to last night. My old GFX card bit the dust and I got my new one in. I install my new GFX card to the mobo and power the computer on. Same issue happens with the network card. I now have gfx, but no internet.

When I go into the device manager I see that there is an error tagged to the ethernet card, when I look at the details it says "failed to start, error 10"

It seems that my mobo does not like new friends to come play, or something else is wrong.
I have tried uninstalling and re-installing the drivers for the ethernet card from my mobo drivers CD. This did not fix it. I have also tried enabling/re-enabling the ethernet card in the device list, and doing the same through the BIOS. I have run out of ideas.

I am am hoping someone has an idea or 2 before i spend money on a new motherboard.

--Thanks
--Jettah

That's very strange... It sounds almost like the sort of IRQ/DMA conflict one would get back in the early 90s. Typically that all is handled automatically these days, but certain peripherals might stir the pot I suppose. Hop in you BIOS and see if it says anything about the interrupt settings on your various pieces. It might be worth also changing around the slots cards are in (if possible).

I'm not entirely clear if that's an onboard or an actual NIC peripheral you're using? If it's stand alone, try fully removing the NIC, booting with the graphics and sound, and then reinstalling the NIC? It could be something as bizarre as the order of operations.

As far as new pieces, I would spring for a new network card long before a new mobo! Likely to fix it, and 10% the price. Can remove/disable the other in BIOS, and run with the new card.

Onboard ethernet.

I am planning on heading to Frys tomorrow and picking up a PCI-Express NIC card. 12 bucks is better than a new mobo.

Update for anyone interested.
No clue what was causing the issue. But 12 dollars later with PCI-Express NIC card, problem solved. Internet and new GFX card are now both working. On to install the new sound card later.

Woot woot!

I'm guessing it was actually a rare modern occurrence of an IRQ conflict or something - the mobo may have a particularly unusual or hardwired assignment that the peripherals couldn't handle, or something. Either way, glad it's working again for $12 instead of $200!