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Uh-oh... LAN dropout?


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So, I was kicking some butt in Halo last night, when all of a sudden I lose my connection to the server. "Oh well", I think, "it's a bit late - I suppose something's trying to tell me to call it a night..." ;) I went to check my e-mail, but no dice there either. Something was up!

 

Turns out I had completely lost all LAN connection whatsoever! I tried the following to get it back:

 

1. Unplugging and re-insert the cable. Nothing. Windows didn't even notice (i.e. the usual 'network unplugged' message). I still got the green 'link' light come back on when the cable was plugged in, though.

 

2. Disable and re-enable 'Local Area Connection' in control panel. Wouldn't re-enable - just gave me an error message!

 

3. Re-boot. Still didn't work! Didn't actually wanna shut down either: just hung on shutdown screen - had to reset the machine.

 

Obviously, it's working now, but I guess that's a given, seeing as the PC's been off cold.

 

I have looked at a few other forum messages about LAN dropouts, but I don't appear to be having the same symptoms. Other people say they experience hangs, others 'network unplugged' msgs. I'm not overclocking, so I doubt it's heat related. I am also running a current BIOS too (see sig).

 

One thing I did notice that was weird, was that the orange 'activity' light on the NIC was steadily blinking repeatedly, even when the cable was unplugged! It even continued over the reboot! Is this some kinda error code from the NIC trying to tell me something went wrong?

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I have seen a few reasons what this could be and the ones i have found using the search facility are....

 

1. the South Bridge could be heating up excesivley (specially when OCing) and causing the drop, solution is too get some decent HSF on there and cool it down......

 

2. The Mac addy sometimes needs manually punched in, this is found on the sticker on the north side of the AGP slot.....

 

3. The other longer and more indepth solution i have found is that when you install winblows that the Dfi mobo by default installs a ACPI UNiproccessor PC,,,,,what is needed for a more stable system with less LAn drops is an Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC..........

 

Here is linky too thread that shows more indepth how to.....

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread...ght=lan+dropout

 

Just my tupence ;)

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Originally posted by Angry_Games

flashing lights just means that the LAN controller is trying to communicate with your router/modem

Err, even when the cable is unplugged?!? No NIC I've ever seen has tried to send packets whilst there is no link.

 

Originally posted by Angry_Games

sometimes when you get stuck in that IP of 169.xxx.xxx.xxx then you have to re-enter the MAC address (sticker on the north side of the AGP slot)

It wasn't stuck on a 169.* IP address. As far as the LAN properties were concerned, it still had its usual IP (192.168.1.11).

 

The only time I've ever seen PCs get stuck with a 169.* address is when it wasn't able to grab an IP via DHCP (from a router/server/whatever).

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Originally posted by loggan26

1. the South Bridge could be heating up excesivley (specially when OCing) and causing the drop, solution is too get some decent HSF on there and cool it down......

 

Hmm... But my SB chip already has a heatsink on it! It came like that out of the box.

 

Anyway, I'm not O/C-ing, so I doubt it's a heat issue. Regardless, next time it happens, I'll check the temp (with that accurate thermal sensing tool - my finger! :P ).

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Yeah the sb gets very hot with the stock heatsink. If you have a motherboard temp monitoring program (MBM 5 for example) the 'case temperature' is the sb temp I believe.

 

It is a bit strange for that light to blink with no cable though. I just disabled-enabled my nic in windows (disabling it turns the lights off if it's in use) and the lights did not blink once upon re-enable with no cable connected.

 

Judging by your previous posts you are using a static IP? That's probably just as well. Maybe try pinging your router, usually no matter how much I screw up the network card on any computer I can still ping unless it's a bad cable (which happens to me a lot, I'm not very gentle with them)

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Well, I've never seen anything over 40C for the 'case' temperature in MBM 5. But then, I can't watch it when playing games, so maybe it does go higher... :) Perhaps I shall do some logging with MBM.

 

I am allocating IPs from the router with DHCP. But my two PCs always get the same IPs, though... :D Pinging the router definitely did not work when I had the problem - first thing I tried!

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Haha excellent. 40 is nothing to worry about mine regularly hits 45, if I close the door to the closet (where computer is) and full-load it I have hit 52 before.

 

At this point I am kind of stumped, my mom's computer (ASUS-via board, it is a piece) used to jump off the network after a lot of transfer and I would have to restart to fix, the ACPI PC switch fixed that though, so it might be worth a shot in your case.

 

After reading a few threads it seems like 6/19 bios and ACPI PC switch seem to cure any problems people have, though both involve (relatively small) risks.

 

Well hopefully Angry has some more insight into this, maybe try reinstalling the LAN drivers as a longshot...?

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