New Mobo Can't Connect to Internet

Hi,

Well, I have only done two XP MoBo replacements, and in both cases I had to format and reinstall. This did not surprise me given the way the MS anti-piracy mechanism works. The MoBo is too large a change (unless it is the same MoBo) and will almost certainly be detected.

I have added hard drives and RAM without XP batting an eyelid, but have had problems with modems, sound and video cards..............most of that could be put down to drivers though.

I think that aeallison discovered bugs in the beta release of XP.

The scenario that I envisage is that you load the XP OS and it creates an uninstall record. This record contains the hardware configuration (that is the logical error, as there is no good reason for it to do so, other than to remove XP drivers) On uninstallation, it detects that the hardware has changed and crashes. That is a design flaw as a second HDD does not install new drivers. It also implies that the uninstall record is not updated when new hardware is added.

The way it should work is uninstall what it has installed and warn you that there is stuff you will have to uninstall manually, if appropriate.

I must admit that I am surprised that it seemed to work for the first couple of boots.

My suggestion:

1. Try SDK's suggestion and uninstall AVG, although that might just be a coincidence.
2. Reformat and reinstall the OS

This is a pure guess, but I suspect that XP tolerated the anomalies until AVG started to try to connect to the net on its own (as it does)..........that probably broke something. Even if option #1 works, you will still have to go to option #2 if my suspicions are correct.

Good luck

I disagree with the format because of a new motherboard idea. MS doesn't like you changing your entire system, but it only should require you to reactivate XP.

As to the connection problem, if you're getting a bogus address it means its not seeing the DHCP server. You say this happened right after installing AVG which leads me to think the problem is related. I don't know if AVG has any firewall software built in, but firewall is the piece of software I would be looking for. You might also try reinstalling the NIC driver just to be safe. If you have a CD bootable OS, I would try that and verify that the card still works. It might have worked yesterday and just blew up today. That will verify all of your HW and you'll know for sure its a SW issue.

Nothing personal zENGER but I have to disagree with your disagreement. :D

You might want to compare your profile and experience to nihil's and my own.

nuff said...

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Originally posted here by aeallison
Nothing personal zENGER but I have to disagree with your disagreement. :D

You might want to compare your profile and experience to nihil's and my own.

nuff said...

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How do you say "nothing personal" and then follow it up with compare your personal info to my personal info? Are you talking about the AO profile that I didn't bother to fill out? Whos to say that any of it would be correct if I did? I've been in computers since around 85, I have a BS in CS, I'm a CNE, I'm an IA contractor for the gov't, and was formerly a computer tech for the gov't. I am also an extra class amateur radio operator much like yourself. I didn't bother typing that into my profile because I don't really find it relavent. Its self proclaimed and advice should be taken with a grain of salt anyways. I give the most helpful information that I have. I don't think our profiles and experiences are too much diverse, maybe just our opinions. I have changed motherboards many times and had no problems. Maybe you didn't have any luck doing it which isn't a dig against you, sometimes stuff happens. None the less, I prefer to exhaust all my resources trying to fix the problem before trying to reinstall. Just my personal preference.

Your disagreement of my disagreement is so noted and accepted. To each his own opinion :)

Hey zENGER, chill out man!

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I have changed motherboards many times and had no problems

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sure, so have I but NOT Windows XP! that is what this is about, I feel.

XP machines are relatively new, so don't have that many MoBo failures. If I upgraded a machine to XP it was a new installation anyway. I have encountered problems with replacing the MoBo on an existing XP machine, as have several of my friends in the business.

But there is one thing I will say:

All the bits of paper and letters after your name don't count for a jot compared to actually opening the case and getting the damn thing to work :D

Incidentally, I do not follow your comment on "re-activation"??????????? the only time you need to do that is after a reinstall, not a repair/restore???

Quote:

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Originally posted here by nihil
All the bits of paper and letters after your name don't count for a jot compared to actually opening the case and getting the damn thing to work :D

Incidentally, I do not follow your comment on "re-activation"??????????? the only time you need to do that is after a reinstall, not a repair/restore???

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I agree, thats why I didn't bother putting that stuff in my profile. I solely speak from an educated and experienced position and let the readers do what they want with the information.

As to reactivation, sometimes if you change too much HW in your machine the software licensing code will trigger and require to you re-activate. This is caused by the fact that XP only allows you to make small changes to your HW before it assumes something fishy is going on.

I'm not saying that he won't have to reinstall, I just think that exhausting other options first would be a better course. No need to hijack this thread any longer. I respect your opinions and I hope you respect mine. There is no clean cut answer in anything electronic :)

Thanks everybody, problem's fixed!

Due to the clock running out on me, I went ahead and reformatted, and indeed, that fixed the problem. Backed up all the files the owner wanted then restored them after the reinstallation, and all is well, running smooth and clean.

By the way, I should have mentioned earlier, but prior to my installing AVG there was no AV installed and it had quite a virus infestation (350+ infected files last count). Norton was on there but not running for some reason.

Another intesting thing I discovered: The new MoBo I installed has a built in ethernet port, as I stated earlier. However, since the old MoBo did not, there was of course a seperate NIC in the machine. I left the NIC out until I was finished reformatting and reinstalling, and just used the built in port. Here's where it gets interesting -- After I was finished I decided to put the NIC back in just so it would be there just the way the owner had had it before. Well, once I stuck the NIC back in (but still using the MoBo's own ethernet port), it stopped connecting to the network again, giving me the exact same symptoms and error messages as before the reformat. So, I quickly removed the NIC, rebooted, and all was well again.

This would leave you to think that was the original problem, but such is not the case either -- Before reformatting, I tried removing the NIC and using the MoBo's port only, and it still didn't work. Didn't work until after the reformatting, and it works now. So, it seems there were potentially two problems, though I find it odd that adding a NIC would cause such a conflict.

Whatever be the case though, box is finished and going back to its owner today. :)

If you just removed the card instead of uninstalling from device manager and removing the card maybe there was some kind of lingering driver issue?

Good deal ;) AngelicKnight. I am glad you resolved the issue on your own, keep up the good work mate.

zENGER I agree my post may have been a bit of a personal attack on your ego... after seeing what should have been in your profile. You are still quite new here, and obviously don't understand the importance of AO's Profile data. I am sure most of us "old timers" here will agree that a properly filled out profile, including hobbies and interests of the poster, ways heavily on the content of their reply and respect for the person they are replying to. I apologize... :cool: