NIC stops boot up

[Scout]

I have some cheap (really cheap) NIC's from Linksys sold under their "Network Everywhere" logo. They work fine on my 100 Mbit lan, but they have a strange behavior when starting the computers up. Often when you power on the computer sits there, dead as a door-nail with no video splash, nothing. The Power lights are on, but no boot. You power down and try it again and it goes normally and operates completely normal. Sometimes it takes three tries to get the computer going. These are ATX power supplies and I have several of these NICS installed in both Intel and AMD platforms. Remove or replace the NIC and the start-up problem goes away. Anybody got any ideas on this one?

Scout

 

[Henrik]

I have a vauge recollection of a similar problem. I think it was the Wake-On-Lan that caused my bootup problems. If you have the WOL-cable connected, try disconnecting it.

 

[Guest]

You should also make sure the motherboard settings are disabled in the bios and/or jumpers on the motherboard. I have used numerous Network Everywhere cards without any problem, so i doubt it is in the card.

 

[lakedude]

This may be more Urban Legend than fact but it seems to me that some network cards do not like being in the PCI slot closest to the ISA slots. Don’t know why or even for sure that it is true but it seems to be.