nforce 4 gigeth issue.

[ashridah]

Hey.

I just finished building a new system, which includes the Asus a8n32-sli-deluxe motherboard, which uses the nforce4 chipset.

I'm having a weird problem in windows XP, however. Initially, i had the nvidia ethernet port disabled in the bios while i was setting up windows.
Later turned it on, and even though it's enabled in the bios, and has a cable connected, it's refusing to install properly on windows.

I'm pretty sure it's showing up as Unknown PCI Bridge device (or some such) but reinstalling the nforce drivers from nvidia.com, uninstalling the device and redetecting it, etc, are not resolving the issue.

The chipset doesn't seem to be faulty however, as I can get it working fine under linux.

Anyone know what might be causing this issue, or what i might have forgotten?

Thanks

ash

[retsam]

goto guru3d and try a beta driver.

[grey_1]

Doesn't that board use the marvell gigabit?

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2589&p=4

If so, the correct drivers should be seperate from nv's drivers on the disk.

[ashridah]

Doesn't that board use the marvell gigabit?

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2589&p=4

If so, the correct drivers should be seperate from nv's drivers on the disk.

Interestingly enough, it has *both* a marvell AND an nforce gigabit ethernet adapter, although I can see how you'd be confused from the review you posted.

Both of the built in adapters use Marvell's PHY, namely, the unit that actually deals with actually converting signals for use on the physical wire. They both use different chips for the actual interface, however:
0000:02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8053 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
0000:00:13.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 Ethernet Controller (rev a3)


The marvell one is working fine. the nforce4 one is DOA, but only in windows because it won't install the driver for the device it can clearly detect. Works fine under linux so far.

I checked guru3d for a beta driver, but they don't seem to have anything newer than the one I'm currently using, namely, 8.22.

ash

[grey_1]

Interestingly enough, it has *both* a marvell AND an nforce gigabit ethernet adapter, although I can see how you'd be confused from the review you posted.

Both of the built in adapters use Marvell's PHY, namely, the unit that actually deals with actually converting signals for use on the physical wire. They both use different chips for the actual interface, however:
0000:02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8053 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
0000:00:13.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 Ethernet Controller (rev a3)


The marvell one is working fine. the nforce4 one is DOA, but only in windows because it won't install the driver for the device it can clearly detect. Works fine under linux so far.

I checked guru3d for a beta driver, but they don't seem to have anything newer than the one I'm currently using, namely, 8.22.

ash

Thx for the info:) , Sorry I couldn't help ya, GL.

[retsam]

try driver cleaner and get that driver fully out then try an older driver to see what happens.

[Son Goku]

This is a long standing problem that affects the nForce 3, as well as the nForce 4. I got an nForce 3 board (largely because I still need AGP for now) last October. All has worked OK, except the ethernet. Over various driver versions forget it, and enabling/disabling the thing in task manager results in Windows locking up hard...

It's disabled in the BIOS now, and I have an old Intel PCI NIC sitting in the comp to get out. Mind you, this works fine in Linux, using the nForce drivers there, so definitely a Windows prob...

The bad thing about that is booting between Windows/Linux, also means changing the BIOS, and physically moving the cable behind my computer now. Linux prefers the built in NIC ad eth0 with the drivers in there, and even if it's disabled in the BIOS doesn't matter. Perhaps I could manually edit the network config files in Linux, sending it to eth1 instead; but the easier solution (for me) would be if the nForce 3 NIC worked in Windows. I had rather given up hope on that one...

[betterdan]

I guess I have been lucky. On our NForce 3 and now on our NForce 4 board the ethernet has worked fine. Never has gave us any problems.