Is my pc dying!?

OK this is really weird so im gonna start from the first. A few days ago my wireless internet connection went out. ( not totally unusual) since then I have found out my netgear router is toast. it was REALLY hot and I think it fried. ( im going with linksys next) thats not really my issue, just part of it. After my net died I decided to do a defrag and check disk on my system. Since that time it had come up saying "wireless network connection unavailable" ( well my net is down so I know I dont have it) now im not certain ( I havent checked yet) but Im pretty sure I removed my regular ethernet card to put the wireless one in. BUT it is also showing a local area connection wth a red X on it. I figured it was disabled so I right click on it and it ISNT disabled. It says the word "disable" instead of "enable" when I click the word disable it restarts my pc every time. When I go to device manager I dont see a regular nic card I see an Ethernet Controller. If I try and disable that or uninstall same deal It restarts my pc. After a few times of this happening a message has now appeared on my pc saying " Major hardware changes have been detected you have 3 days to reactivate your windows or you wont be able to use windows til you activate again. My question is this. once I get a new router I know I can fix my internet but is my pc dying?! its only 1 year old. I take really good care of it lol

Im running a legal copy of XP Pro. P4, 512 megs of ram I have a Linksys wireless card. and I wasnt doing anything crazy with it before this started. My internet just died ( as well as dying on my roomates pc's.) then I ran the scans and all this started!

Maybe your board needs a bios update????


MLF

that is a possibility that I cant rule out but this all is just so sudden and random... I really dont want to have to format my hard drive either...

For the love of god, STAY AWAY FROM LINKSYS!

I had one. It dropped connection constantly. Tech support told me I had to have line-of-site for it to work. Uh, hello? If I had line-of-site, I'd run CAT5 to the computer.

I switched to a SMC Barricade G and have had absolutely no problems in more than a year of use.

what do you suggest? I wasnt to happy with netgear and I have heard horrid things about Belkin

I use dlinks....they work fine for home use...you can get repeaters\amplifiers for them.

Never really had any problems....

as for linksys....I pickup a linksys wireless at my house thats somewhere in the nieghbourhood....and its definately not line of site :cool:

MLF

You have to be able to connect to the net to "reactivate windows" so im gonna have to get my internet working again to reactive but I think there may be more issues than just that as I outlined above. I cant hardwire into my modem because I cant find my regular nic all I have is my wireless card :(

You can phone MS to activate....I have done it

MLF

Hi Tex

I've been using a DLink 704P for two years now without any problems (knock on wood), they are fairly cheap in price and are easy to configure..

http://www.dlink.com/ ;)

I dont mean to be rude and thank you for the router reviews but could we please bring this back on track? I have attached screenshots of my problem. everytime I click on "disable" on the ethernet controller it restarts my pc. I re-activated my windows btw. I want the red X icon to go away and I want to disable that nic controller? I guess? since I am not working wirelessly again. I just really want to know if all this is being caused because my windows is dying?

http://www.antionline.com/images/ieimages/2006/06/1.jpg

http://www.antionline.com/images/ieimages/2006/06/2.jpg

open the box
remove suspect parts
reboot
check through system

it will ignore the drivers cos the physical parts are gone
so it will have disabled it :)

do you have any access to spare bits ?
does your budget run to buying another NIC ?

My wireless nic isnt a problem it seems the problem is the on board ethernet controller. since its onboard I cant remove it.

*UPDATE:* I went to the Nivida website and update the driver for my onboard ethernet controller. As I was doing the update it restarted my pc just like it would do if I clicked "disable" on the controller in network connections. I found out this is a "stop error" anyway once my computer restarted the controller was gone! I guess the problem has fixed itself? but now I have another lol. As you will see from screenshot 3 the ethernet controller is now gone from device manager and from network connections but I have a network bus enumerator that is messed up?! I tried to update the drivers on that but it didnt work. what is that and do I need to fix it? Is my windows dying?! MLF suggested a bios update, do I need that?

http://www.antionline.com/images/ieimages/2006/06/3.jpg

Hmmm... First of all right click my computer > properties > advanced tab > settings under start up and recovery > make sure "automatically restart" under system failure is UNCHECKED, that way we can get widows to BSOD and get an error code...

After doing this try and recreate the problem if you want.... It will enable you to get a more specific idea of what is wrong...


Also, your nvidia network bus enumerator problem... I'm guessing your using a mobo with an nvidia chipset... Look at the version of the driver that you have installed for it. If it's older then this:

http://www.soft32.com/download_183252.html

Then try installing it... If nothing changes then just do a rollback...

Hmmmm,

Just as a general thought, problems can happen when you have a card AND an on board chipset. Check in your BIOS and see if you can disable the nVidia networking.

Basically you had a bit of kit fry whilst still connected. That kind of event can cause all sorts of strange things to happen. OK I have never had it happen with network cards, but it is not uncommon with video and sound.

:)

Reset the MAC address in the system's BIOS (if you are using the onboard LAN adapter).

I had a similar problem with my nForce3-based DFI motherboard some time ago where the onboard NIC would 'forget' its own MAC address and consequently cause any network-related dialogues (including the driver install dialogues) in XP to work very slowly with no end result.

It's a very unusual problem, and perhaps not what you're experiencing, but give it a try nonetheless.

Im at work right now but when I get home im first gonna try and download the link that Ducky provided (thanks!) and to answer Nihil's question. I have an onboard nvidia ethernet controller and an nvidia mobo. I also have a linksys wireless card to work with my linksys wireless router. f2b, I read your post but I was a little confused by it. do you mind going in a little more detail on how to do what you suggested? Thank you. Tyler.

Ducky, the link you gave me doesnt open. do you possibly have another?
************
UPDATE: I went to the nvidia website and downloaded the newest driver for my mobo ( I think) and when I did half way thru the installation I got the blue screen and I got this: STOP: 0X0000007E ( 0XC0000005, 0XB7410761,0XF8AA5698,0XF8AA5394.NVNRM.SYS-ADDRESS B741D761 BASE AT B7413000. DATESTAMP 4253B853. Beginning Pysical Memory Dump.
I dont know what that means but it cant be good.

Im also attaching a screenshot of something new. In my previous screenshot the yellow mark was next to Networking Bus Enumerator. Now that yellow mark is gone from that and it is now on Nvidia Nforce Networking Controller. What the hell is going on?!

http://www.antionline.com/images/ieimages/2006/06/4.jpg

You have to give us driver details man... What version of the drivers did you have before and what version did you try upgrading with? What motherboard do you have? How far did you get in the mobo driver installation? What part did it BSOD on? I'm guessing when you tried installing the onboard NIC drivers???

Your not the only one who's having this problem. A quick google search reveals tons of people having the same problem with nvidia onboard nic's... The BSOD error code points the problem to the NVNRM.SYS file... You'll probably have to manually delete that file and install older nividia nic drivers...


If your still interested in the network bus enumerator driver, try this: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/win/37147

It's an older version of the driver but it's worth a try...


Bah, at this point it's just best to take nihil's advice and see if you can disable the onboard nic in the bios... Your not using it and a lot of people are having problems with it... It's not your fault, it's Nvidia not being able to get their **** together....

Also, if you have "nVidia Network Access Manager" listed in add/remove programs then uninstall it, it just causes system instability if your using the onboard nvidia nic...

BTW, I apologize if it's hard to make sense of this... I've been awake for 33 straight hours... again...

to everyone: I fixed it :) I tried updating drivers etc.... having lots of problems so I took nihils advice and disabled the onboard controller in the bios. seems to have cleared up the problem. thanx again for putting up with my parinoid postings lol :)

Hi Tex~,

Glad to hear that fixed it. TheDuck is right, nVidia onboard NICs can be an issue, particularly with the later driver sets.

I guess the issue was provoked when your router fried?

:)

Yes I do believe your right nihil, so I guess my windows isnt dying after all.... although I still find it odd that I was asked to re-activate my windows. I guess the stop error combined with my installing and reinstall drivers caused windows to think it was an illegal copy?

Well,

I guess we are both pretty much in the dark as to how the current MS DRM works?

When your router died, your WiFi NIC had nothing to talk to and Windows suddenly "discovered" the onboard NIC. That, together with the driver changes might have led it to suspect that you had a new MoBo

Remember that for OEM versions, MS consider a new MoBo to be a new computer, and the OEM version of Windows is not transferrable. On re-activation it would discover that it was the same MoBo, or an identical replacement, which is allowed.

Actually you can change the MoBo, but telephone Microsoft, don't try to activate it online ;)

I did the online reactivation, should I have phoned them instead?

phone em if you HAVE changed MoBo .........

you didn't, so it's all good :)

ok thank yall for putting my mind at rest. im just glad my pc is still gonna work! ;)