In which there is happiness at a successful install, wailing and gnashing of teeth at lack of a net connection, and an appeal for advice from the technically-minded. We’ll be back to normal around here soon. Really. Maybe.
One of the things I like about this country is the ability to specify the exact date and time of delivery when you mail-order things. The parts for my new machine came in like clockwork last night in a series of three consecutive shipments at 6:30, 7:30, and 9:00 PM, practically handing the equipment to me like a surgeon’s assistant responding to tool requests during open heart.
For my first complete build from scratch things went pretty well. None of the parts were damaged, everything fit in the case with relative ease, nothing broke off or exploded in the process of clamping it down, and it booted the second time I hit the power switch. I had Windows installed by 1:00 AM or so, and it seemed like everything was going fine. Which it was – until I tried to connect to the internet.
The motherboard I chose for this project was Abit’s KN8 Ultra, as per the recommendation of Ars Technica’s Hot Rod system guide and a quick perusal of the other options available at Kakaku.com. It has a very scanty online presence aside from the official page and this review at the AnandTech forums, which hasn’t helped thus far in clearing up the issue I’m having.
The poster over at AnandTech recommended not installing the nForce network access manager drivers/firewall, so I installed all the other drivers I had on disc and then hooked up the ethernet cable to the jack on the motherboard. The adapter LED lit up. I opened the Abit BIOS updating application with the intent to flash the BIOS first thing, but it wouldn’t connect to the internet.
I checked Network Connections: nothing. Not a single connection was listed, it was a big blank white window. The KN8 line doesn’t come with firewire connectors so that was expected, but no local area connection? Uh oh. After casting around for other possible solutions for a bit and coming up with nothing I decided to cave in and try to install the default NAM drivers, figuring that crappy net access was better than nothing.
So I go to run the driver installer from the disc that came with the motherboard. It thinks for awhile, and then tells me “sorry, we can’t find the applicable nVidia driver and/or hardware component.” The driver is obviously on the disc, so that is most likely not the problem (though I have yet to try a manual install). I go to check the list of installed hardware in the Windows device manager: no ethernet listed. Is this a chicken-and-egg thing with the drivers (Windows won’t recognize the ethernet port until its drivers are installed, but the driver installer app can’t find the hardware until Windows knows it’s there)? If not, why did the LED turn on when I plugged the cable into the board?
I’m up a creek without a paddle at this point, and if anyone reading this has any input or suggestions on a next step to take it would be much appreciated. I don’t think the rest of the system configuration has any bearing on this particular problem, but if it would help I can post it to comments afterward… the only possible wild card I can think of is that I switched the default OS language to Japanese on install, and all of the driver install applications showed me their Japanese versions instead of English. I doubt that has anything to do with it, but you never know. Or I never know, rather. I’m pretty much a newbie when it comes to all of this. If nothing else, any tips on how to manually install drivers from a directory on a CD to wherever they need to be in the guts of Windows (the registry, presumably) would be appreciated.
The Agent Wax Multi-appliance Servicing Technique :P :
Step 1: Reboot
Does it work?
>No
Step 2: Whack it with hands
Does it work?
>No
Step 3: Whack it with tool
Does it work?
>No
Step 4: Repeat Step 3 until it works, or until appliance becomes a pile of mush, whichever comes first.
Step 1: tried, failed.
Step 2: tried, failed.
Step 3: … but … but … it’s my baby … ;__;
Step 4: ;______;
Looking through the manual again I noted a potential cause of the problem – instead of following the driver installation instructions to the letter and using the main driver install application to load the network drivers I tried using the setup app in the network driver folder directly. This seems like the most likely culprit at this point, but if so it’s incredibly stupid. And by it I mean me. I’ll try this when I get home… I wouldn’t mind a bit of egg on my face if it gets the darn thing to work.
devices like ethernet should be showing up in the device manager as unknown devices without drivers. it sounds to me like you don’t have the nvidia chipset drivers loaded right. Try reinstalling that.
Hmm, if following the manual still doesn’t work, here are some suggestions:
When you booted up windows for the first time, did you remember seeing anything Unknown Device dialog box pop-up, mentioning something about “nForce Ethernet device”?
If you have seen it, you could try looking in the Control Panel -> System (when you are in the control panel, you must be in classic view, not category view. System is also reachable by right-clicking on My Computer, and then clicking properties). Choose the hardware tab, and click on the Device Manager button.
Locate any unknown devices in this window – they will have a little exclaimation mark in their icon. Select the device that has “nForce network – something” in it’s name, and right-click and choose uninstall.
Try doing the installation again. Hopefully it will be detected.
Also, if you have another computer around, you can try downloading a new driver from nvidia.com – it’s not unheard of for manufacturers to bundle the wrong drivers.
>>Anonymous
Thanks for the tip. That’s going to be one of the first things I do when I get back from work… really hoping this is just a software issue.
>>bakavic
I didn’t see any unknown device notices, or anything that would have tipped me off to the problem prior to my attempt to plug’n’play the ethernet cable. I did check the device manager, and the only questionable driver was that for the video card (which is working fine so I should be able to deal with it later). There wasn’t evidence of anything remotely ethernet-related in the selection of devices.
I do have another machine running, fortunately – though given the descriptions of the software in the AnandTech thread I’m pretty sure I’m dealing with the correct beast here. I’ll try following the install procedure in the manual and see if that fixes it; if not, it’s to scouring the web for alternate drivers.
I know this may be a “duh” suggestion, but do you have the OnChip LAN Controller enabled in the BIOS?
Go into your BIOS on boot-up. Once there, go to “Integrated Peripherals”. Look at “OnChip LAN Controller” and make sure it says Auto or Enabled. I’m not sure if Auto is the same thing as Enabled, so if it’s on Auto, you might want to try switching it to Enabled (if that’s even an option). The one below it, “Onboard LAN Boot ROM”, should be kept at Disabled, however.
If you change the setting, back out of that section then go to “Save & Exit Setup”. Be sure not to accidently change anything else!
I only suggest this because the Asus board I used in my last build came with the LAN Controller disabled by default, and I had the exact same problem as you. The ethernet light flickered when I had it connected to a modem even when the LAN Controller was disabled.
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai/news/20060512p2g00m0dm014000c.html
>>Momotato
Thanks for the advice. It turned out to be an issue of installing the drivers in the proper sequence off of the CD, actually… things are running perfectly as of now, resulting in a weekend lost in Oblivion. -_-;; It’s not as good as Morrowind, alas, despite the killer graphics; I don’t know if I’ll stick to it as fervently as its predecessor.
>>Moe_IS_evil
Yeah, I just saw that over at ANN. I think miss Sakamoto has made a few flagrant mischaracterizations and is addressing a range of unrelated issues that deserve some decompacting; I think I’ll hack together a post about it, in fact.