Motherboard's network adapter problem

[laur0511]

The story is a bit long so the tl;dr, and my question is this:
Is my motherboard's network adapter dead (fried) and should i take it in for a warranty claim, or is there something i can do to solve this?

Before we start my motherboard is an Asus Rampage Extreme III. For my internet conection i chose not to use a separate network adapter, but instead use the onboard network adapter, mainly because that's what i've always done. Operating system was Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

What happened is this; i shut down the PC and went to sleep. There was a big storm and i think lightning landed on my apartment building. I figured, no biggie, because i have everything plugged into surge protected extenters which are themselves plugges into grounded outlets. Although my network cable goes straight into my PC (the motherboard's onboard network adapter) i'm sure that the switch from where it comes is also surge protected, after all that's my ISP's job. When i got up today i turned the PC on, everyting absolutely normal, but i realised i didnt have an internet connection. I then went into control panel - network and sharing - adapter settings and was shocked to see it wasn't showing my adapter anymore. I then went into device manager to check it and saw that it showed as if the driver wasn't properly installed, and by that i mean the adapter was there, only that it had a little yellow "!" to its left. Upon checking its properties i saw the error "This device cannot start (code 10)". I figured i'll just reinstall the driver and be done with it. So i cleanly uninstalled the driver, and restarted. Upon entering windows the "new hardware found wizard" showed up. I let it install my network adapter, but upon completion it said it had failed, and device manager once again looked like before (with the little yellow "!"). I proceeded to unistall it agai and restart the PC only to meet the same result. At this point i figured i'll just install it from my motherboard dvd, as that might work. It aparently installed successfully but the device manager looked the same and there was still no adapter in the adapter settings page. I then unistalled the driver again and this time turned the auto install of new hardware off, so i could do it manually from my dvd. After doing all this i was back to square one, driver aparently installed, but still showed up as "cannot start (code 10)" in device manager and no adapter in the settings page.

I then checked the back of my pc to be sure the adapter wasnt burned. Since the little LED that showed it was active was on, i figured it's not fried. I restarted the PC and checked the BIOS to see if it can see my adapter. It was indeed there, no modifications, just as it has always been, under advanced, onboard devices. After calling some more savvy friends i decided i'll just reinstall windows as a faulty update could have done this. I proceeded to reinstall windows, formatting my windows partition, and leaving the other intact. After it was done i went ahead and installed everything from my asus mobo dvd using the InstALL utility. Everything went ok, but after restarting my pc to complete the installation i checked the adapter i found out it looked just like before: yellow "!", cannot start device code 10, and not showing up in adapter settings. At this point i was getting worried. I figured i had done something wrong, so i saved everything on my data partition on an external drive and went ahead and installed windows again, this time formatting my entire HDD and recreating the partitions. After the instalation was over i proceeded to use the mobo dvd to install its drivers as before. Everything normal again, with the same result as far as the adapter goes. I figured i might as well try another operating system since i was getting desperate, and went ahead and installed Windows XP, formatting my entire HDD again. Same outcome, yellow "!", code 10, no adapter to put my IPs into so i can get online.

At this point i figured something had gone terribly wrong and here i am typing this, and hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

I asked my neighbour, who has a network cable coming from the same switch as me, and he said everything was ok for him and had been all day, even though he's got no surge protection for anything.

Now, what do you guys think? Is my onboard network controller dead? And if so should i take it in for warranty and ask for a replacement Mobo? Is there somthing i am missing or something i could do to get it to work again? Please help.

 

[Guest]

Couple of quick Q's

Have you checked the cable?
You say your neighbour uses the same switch - can you connect to a different port on that switch and test?
Lights - Should be a steady orange or green on the right, flashing orange on left. Yes/No

Stuart

 

[compulsivebuilder]

You could try plugging your computer into your neighbour's connection - that way you'd know for certain if it was the port on your motherboard (which it certainly sounds like), or perhaps the internet connection in your house (which it could be).

If you have fried the ethernet port (something I have done before), you can install a network card in a slot - a decent network card isn't expensive. I'd recommend getting a card with a different chip from the one on the motherboard (avoids confusion) - if your motherboard uses Marvell, then get an Intel card; if the motherboard has Intel, then get a Marvell card.

The motherboard manufacturer isn't responsible for damage caused by lightning strike, so you can't legitimately claim a warranty replacement.

 

[laur0511]

Couple of quick Q's

Have you checked the cable?
You say your neighbour uses the same switch - can you connect to a different port on that switch and test?
Lights - Should be a steady orange or green on the right, flashing orange on left. Yes/No

Stuart

The cable works fine, i'm using it on my laptop as we speak.
The switch is also fine, i checked with my ISP and everything works on his side of things.
The steady orange is on, but the flashy one isn't, i thought that should flash only when there actually is a connection.

You could try plugging your computer into your neighbour's connection - that way you'd know for certain if it was the port on your motherboard (which it certainly sounds like), or perhaps the internet connection in your house (which it could be).

If you have fried the ethernet port (something I have done before), you can install a network card in a slot - a decent network card isn't expensive. I'd recommend getting a card with a different chip from the one on the motherboard (avoids confusion) - if your motherboard uses Marvell, then get an Intel card; if the motherboard has Intel, then get a Marvell card.

The motherboard manufacturer isn't responsible for damage caused by lightning strike, so you can't legitimately claim a warranty replacement.

I tried plugging a different cable into the adapter, it's not that, as i literally can't use the adapter. My computer recognizes it (only in device manager, even though it's with the yellow "!" and the cannot start device code 10 error), but as i said, it can't be use in the adapter settings, it's just no there.

As far as getting a separate adapter, i know i could, but this mobo is just barely 6 months only and the warrantly plan i got for it covers even me pouring water on it (for example), so as long as it doesn't work 100% they have to fix it or give me a new one (the shop that is, not asus). The only downside is they'd prolly take a while to determine the problem (since i don't think it's fried per-se), then fix it or order a new mobo; all in all it could leave me 1-2 weeks without my pc, which i'd hate. Plus, even though i can, i'm not a huge fan of stripping everything off my pc to get to the mobo, and then putting it all back together.

 

[GhislainG]

Did you try the latest Intel drivers instead of the ones on the DVD?

 

[laur0511]

Did you try the latest Intel drivers instead of the ones on the DVD?

The ones on the dvd are the latest ones. There was no update after them.

 

[GhislainG]

What happens if you disable it in the BIOS, delete it from device manager and then scan for hardware changes? If it isn't detected (it shouldn't), then enable it again in the BIOS. After booting, the OS should try to install the drivers. If that step fails, then disable it again in the BIOS and install a discrete card or RMA the motherboard. Unless there are burned components on it, Asus have no way of determining that lightning probably damaged it.

 

[laur0511]

What happens if you disable it in the BIOS, delete it from device manager and then scan for hardware changes? If it isn't detected (it shouldn't), then enable it again in the BIOS. After booting, the OS should try to install the drivers. If that step fails, then disable it again in the BIOS and install a discrete card or RMA the motherboard. Unless there are burned components on it, Asus have no way of determining that lightning probably damaged it.

I already tried that, and when it detects the onboard adapter, it tries to install it, and fails.

As far as a separate adapter goes, ya, i already put one in, and it works just fine, i'm actually using it right now, but i dont want to keep a faulty mobo in my PC, even if it's just a minor inconvenience, it's just 6 months old. Also, you're right, i can pretty much confirm it is NOT burned, so unless they have some special tech i'm not aware of they'll never know it was caused by lightning (even though i myself and not sure lightning is the culprit here, like i said, most of everything connected to my PC went through some sort of surge protection, including the switch from where the network cable comes).
I will speak to the guys at the shop tommorow, but i got a feeling i'll be without a PC for 2 weeks untill i can get a replacement.

 

[locomotive]

I know it is an old thread, but I'm having more or less the same issue with the same mobo and the stupid intel 82567V-2 Gigabit card, and i think i've tried everything.
In addition to what you've done I've also tried with other OS(s) (Arch Linux, Ubuntu) and nothing. On win7 the driver reports "This device is working properly." which is funny because it cannot even get an IP either via DHCP or assigning a valid static one, I can't even get it to ping my router.
Both BIOS (v605) and driver look good, and it's not fried since I've run Intel diagnostics and they've all passed, the identify adapter blinks a led on the mobo, everything looks good... so weird. I'm using the Killer NIC right now... no way out. Could you find a solution?

Thx
Mark

 

[locomotive]

After a long night trying to fix this, I've:

-Wiped my current driver (uninstall from device manager).
-Restarted.
-Cleaned windows registry with CCleaner.
-Used Driver Sweeper for further cleaning.
-Re-flashed my BIOS (to the same version, which was the most recent one)
-Restarted.
-Re-installed the NIC with the driver provided on ASUS Official page for rampage 3 Black ed. (the same one I had before).
-Restarted.

That did the trick, it is working now. Thanks!

 

[brian34]

as you said this your self that this is a old post but i just had thi problem and was very surprized what the fix ended up being.also if this dont help you mabi it can help others as i know that it took me a long time to find it myself. OK! step 1}right click on your enternet icon in the botom right hand corner of your task bar then click open network and sharing center, step 2}click change adapter settings in the top left corner should be the second one down. by the way this is for windows 7, not sure how to do this with other versions of windows,step 3} right click your local area connection and click proporties step 4} click configure step 5} click advanced in the rpoporty box of settings scroll dopwn until you see speed and duplex, click this and it should be set for auto nogotiate chang this to 100 mbs full duplex and click ok, if this does not connect try the next one 100 mbs half duplex and so on untill it does. Hope this helps!

 

[FrannieN]

Ya, ya, it's an old post, but some people are still having this issue (ie me), so for the sake of the next frustrated person, I wanted to share that brian34's answer worked perfectly! Might not have pulled out all my hair if I'd seen his answer a week ago. Thanks, Brian, for posting to an old thread 2 years ago!

(My computer's symptoms were not getting an internet connection to just certain websites while hard-wired to the router or directly to the modem, but getting through via a wireless adapter.)