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View Full Version : the reason why some nforce nic's don't work!!


sandstorm
09-09-04, 12:39 PM
i've been trying to get the nic's on 2 nforce2 mobo's to work and it just did not work.
i've been installing, compiling, updating, editting, reading tfm, asking questions, searching forums and what not.
i was pulling my hair out of my head and have a nice bald spot now....

today i found out why it didn't work...

seems like the onboard nic have problems communicating with certain hubs!!!

yes, you heard me right the first time, a nic with an attitude

like you buy a brand new vga monitor and you find out it doesn't like ati videocards!

so this is not a driver or OS problem at all for i had the same problem when installing win2000 on a different drive with these mobo's!
and all the time i thought it was me that was just to stupid to compile the drivers....

how did i find out,
take a look here, loads of people seem to have the same problem:
http://forum.msi.com.tw/thread.php?threadid=14122

i had the nic plugged into a 3com officeconnect ethernet hub and after reading the aforementioned thread i plugged it into some el cheapo mini switch and voila... the damn thing works as if nothing's wrong at all
i think it even made an evil grinning sound and tried to bite me...

i'm not sure if this is a specific NVIDIA design fault or a MSI implementation fault (neither MSI nor NVIDIA mentions this flaw anywhere) but for the people having trouble getting their nic's to work just try a different hub/switch first before you do crazy things to your self.

ofcourse the store a bought these mobo's won't give me my money back since it has been to long ago since i bought them!!
go figure how much time i spend before i found out what was wrong!

hope this helps someone else though.

shassard
09-19-04, 12:22 PM
I've seen this occasionally with Realtek PHYs and crappy hubs/switches, even some expensive ones. My suggestion is to do as you've done and buy a different brand switch and uplink it into your other one ..