Faulty network card?

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peter2108

Active member
When I start my PC (Win 7 Pro 64) two LAN networks appear when I access the Network Sharing Centre. The second network is a 'phantom'. By going to Change adapter Settings and disabling and then immediately enabling the LAN card ("NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller") the phantom network disappears. While the phantom network is there no internet access is possible as the gateway is 0.0.0.0.

The computer is unstable to varying degrees. Firefox and Google Chrome (and ActiveState Komodo which is a Mozilla based app.) crash. Sometimes this happens repeatedly. Sometimes I have periods when all is well.

I do get bluescreens as well but these appear to be related to USB hard drives. USB Hardrives from WD and Seagate (I replaced the WD drive with the Seagate) have to be unplugged before restarting the PC. Otherwise it will not boot.

This has been going on since I got the PC in March 2010 so there have been lots of software updates and changes since then. I'm thinking the network card may have a fault so it is not a software issue at all.

Is it likely a faulty network card? What card should I use to replace it with? If anyone could comment on this I'd be very grateful. Otherwise the PC is fine.

Thanks, Peter
 
Gorman

Gorman

Author Level
Not likely to be a network card fault, many programs can create "fake" network ports, best to call the heldesk on 0844 499 4000.
 
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peter2108

Active member
Sleinous said:
Hamachi and uTorrent being two such examples.
Click to expand...
Which I don't have :). I called help desk and following advice unplugged all USB cables from back of machine and then plugged them in again but in different slots. Well the fake network did not appear on a restart and brwosers are not crashing.

That this could actually fix it seems impossible.

P.
 
Gorman

Gorman

Author Level
Yes i would be curious as to the logic behind this. Lets see what happens, who did you speak to?
 
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peter2108

Active member
Gorman said:
Yes i would be curious as to the logic behind this. Lets see what happens, who did you speak to?
Click to expand...

Darren. I'll certainly update this thread. I am quoting the conversation (I am deaf and use typetalk):


My PC is unstable. On startup it shows two LANs. One is phantom. No connectivity. Disable/re-enable the adapter and everything ok. But browsing unstable - Firefox and Chrome crash. That's the first thing. Is network card OK?

the only thing i can advise at the moment would be to enter devise manager and check for any ethernet adaptors if there is more than 1 then you uninstall the second

OK - but there seem to be only 1. I will look. Second thing. Western Digital MyBook USB drive. If I restart with that connected the system will not boot. Instead seems to be trying to boot from that drive. Changed to Seagate USB drive. If I reboot with that connected then system will not find any drives at all.

on some external hard drives some files can be transferred to the hard drive that would be considered bootable if that is the case the system will try to boot to that drive instead of your main system drive regard the seagate drive please check the cable between your pc and the drive itself

Check the cable for what? You mean it may be a dud cable somehow?

it may indeed be a break in the cable or a fault with the connection if you try changing the cable this may help

OK will try that. But you don't think it is a network card about the other problem?

I dont think so the reason for this is because you are getting connection but its intermittent it may just be a driver or software conflict

Yeah - could be anything. I'll try the cables and swap around the USB ports. Thanks
Click to expand...

There is only one network adapter shown by device manager. BUT there is an 'unknown device' which has been there for ages. I have never dared uninstall it - perhaps I should??

-- Peter
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
No, an unknown device is likely a driver that Windows could not install from its own driver database.
 
Gorman

Gorman

Author Level
Ok, thats an interesting insight provided by typetalk. I wish i has a transcript of every diagnosis that went on in there.

From what you have described i believe the external hdd issue is fairly simple. It is most likely going to be a simple case of boot priority in the BIOS. I presume external or usb drives have priority over the system drive. So you could check that.

As for the ghost adaptor, it is odd and could indeed explain the brower crashes. I am going to stick with my software theory though, as i cant really put these symptoms together with a hardware port failiure.

Would it be possible to paste a belarc audit for me?

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

Obviously you may want to check the results first and remove any information you dont feel comfortable posting on here, it is very detailed.

EDIT:

unknown device, if it isnt a usb device then put in the motherboard cd and point the unknown device to it for a driver, it will be a chipset component for something obscure.
 
Gorman

Gorman

Author Level
Phoenix said:
Happy Birthday! :D
Click to expand...

Cheers!

Right have had a look through and nothing is screaming "virtual network port" such as vmware or virtual pc etc. There are some entries under the Canon suite which may be suspects eg .

Canon IJ Network Scan Utility for Microsoft Windows Version 2.5.0.0
i Canon IJ Network Scan Utility Uninstaller for Microsoft Windows Version 2.5.0.0
ııı i Canon IJ Network Tool for Microsoft Windows Version 2.5.0.0
i Canon IJ Network Tool Uninstaller for Microsoft Windows Version 2.5.0.0

so they may be worth an uninstall.

When did the network port first appear?
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
I had a look too yesterday, we downloaded the chipset, 300mb, now to see if the driver was in that package! Unknown device has no Hardware ID btw, so im pretty sure its a part of the mobo
 
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peter2108

Active member
Windows would not unpack the 300Mb archive but 7Zip did. The updated NVIDIA software installed fine except for something called ForceWare Network Management utility which would not install. It was optional anyway.

The Canon netwrok stuff has not been used and did not work. I'll clean that out after the reboot. It looks like a good call.

So here goes ....
 
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peter2108

Active member
Well everything rebooted:
1. Phantom network persisted the re-boot bu when I removed the Canon network devices it disappeared (so far).
2. The unknown device persistred the re-bot and the removal of Canon stuff but I simply uninstalled the damn (no)thing
thing and it has stayed uninstalled (so far)
3. I got an NVIDIA disk managagment/diagnostic tool which is really good.

I have not dared to try a reboot with the GoFlex Seagate USB drive attached as the last time I did the computer would not evfen reboot with the thing unplugged - a sort of wild Hack at the BIOS setup was needed (I didn't _change_ any BIOS settings, just went there: veni, vidi, discessi)

So there we are. Thanks to Sleinous Gorman for the help. PCSpecialist should realise if they don't that having this sort of (free) support is much more valuable than their help desk. Also that my confidence is using a little PC assembler instead of big companies is restored. I had resolved not to risk it again but no it does not seem a risk anymore! Thanks
again both

-- Peter

OK, OK, I bumped your buttons
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
Buttons successfully bumped, however this unknown device is bugging me! Its got to be something on teh board and there were no other interesting drivers for your motherboard listed on the ASUS website! Really odd!
 
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peter2108

Active member
Sleinous said:
Buttons successfully bumped, however this unknown device is bugging me! Its got to be something on teh board and there were no other interesting drivers for your motherboard listed on the ASUS website! Really odd!
Click to expand...

If it does not come back we can never know. Strange that the most "precise" of machines are so often like a Victorian ships' chandler with all sorts of mysterious bits of rubbish lying around. If it does I'll restart the thread

P.
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
Its likely linked into this networked issue though that is what conerns me, its likely to be part of the motherboard that is driver-less and we havent a clue what is missing :(
 
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peter2108

Active member
Sleinous said:
Its likely linked into this networked issue though that is what conerns me, its likely to be part of the motherboard that is driver-less and we havent a clue what is missing :(
Click to expand...
My guess is that the failure to properly install the Canon networked printer led to the
creation of both the unknown object and the phantom networked. The former having not properties because of the broken install, the latter occuring because some bits of junk were still installed. Since the (no)thing object had no properties or references I'm not too concerned that removing it will matter becaue I don't see how any code in the system could reference it. But in the end time will tell!

P.
 
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