No internet with windows 7/64bit

[Mitsu3000gt]

This is a bit of a shot in the dark but I have been working on this for 6 hours now to no avail. I just put windows 7 home premium 64bit on my home PC and it absolutely cannot find any network device at all, nor the driver. It isn't listed on the device manager or anything. I have googled everything I can think of, and the only people who seem to have the identical problem have no replies to their threads.

The troubleshooting message I get is "Windows did not detect a properly installed network adapter. If you have a network adapter, you will need to reinstall the driver".

I have downloaded the nivida driver pack for windows 7/64 and all it seems to auto-install is storage drivers. I found the ethernet folder and can't install the driver from there, nor does pasting the driver in windows/system32/drivers do anything.

I have an EVGA 680i nforce SLI motherboard, core 2 duo, etc. I dont think anything is important other than the motherboard. LAN is built into the motherboard.

I have tried Windows 7 64 drivers, vista 64 drivers, you name it. I tried resetting the BIOS defaults, reflashing the bios (although I don't think it worked), etc.

There are no LAN/ethernet, etc options in my BIOS to enable or disable.

I can't get windows to even acknolwedge a driver-less network card in device manager, let alone get a driver working for it.

Any suggestions? I know its probably a long shot but I might as well ask.

Also, if I went out and bought a separate network card would it most likely work?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions - I am very frustrated to say the least. I bought windows 7 expecting everything to be easy/automatic like it seems to be for everyone else! haha.

[ricosuave]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/1928-63-solved-nvidia-nforce-680i-ethernet-port-detected

:dunno:

[Grogador]

You are using this (ftp://ftp.evga.com/Driver/15.53_beta_nforce_win7_64bit.zip), released Jan 11th 2010?

You are using the newest BIOS flash?
Version P33, 09/15/2008, NF68_P33.bin (ftp://ftp.evga.com/bios/NF68_P33.bin)
For 680i LT? Version P08, 09/15/2008, NF67_P08.bin (ftp://ftp.evga.com/bios/NF67_P08.bin)

...you really shouldn't take my word for BIOS flashes; go to http://www.evga.com/support/drivers/ and find the right ones yourself otherwise you might seriously hose your mobo :)


Originally posted by Mitsu3000gt
Also, if I went out and bought a separate network card would it most likely work?
Yes.

[mushi_mushi]

I googled your problem, some people have had success with reinstalling the OS, id give that a try, seems like you dont have much installed at this point so a reinstall would only take a few minutes. If you buy another network adapter it should work fine.

[Zero102]

Is it the 680i nForce LT or just the 680i nForce? They both have different BIOS's. It looks like it is a BIOS thing and you will probably need to update to the latest BIOS. It is available through the evga website which is linked above, and they provide an ISO format BIOS flasher which should make it nice and simple.

[Mitsu3000gt]

ricosuave - I actually have seen that exact thread, but I've been through everything in my bios and I can't find anything related to Lan/Network/Ethernet etc. to enable/disable - could it be called something else?

Grogador - I was not using that, I was using this:http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_win764_15.51.html

I will try the ones you linked too as soon as I get home - Thanks.

mushi_mushi - I've reinstalled the OS 3 times with the same result unfortunately, so I've stopped trying that.

Zero102 - I don't know off hand, I will have to check as soon as I get home.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by Grogador
You are using this (ftp://ftp.evga.com/Driver/15.53_beta_nforce_win7_64bit.zip), released Jan 11th 2010?

You are using the newest BIOS flash?
Version P33, 09/15/2008, NF68_P33.bin (ftp://ftp.evga.com/bios/NF68_P33.bin)
For 680i LT? Version P08, 09/15/2008, NF67_P08.bin (ftp://ftp.evga.com/bios/NF67_P08.bin)

...you really shouldn't take my word for BIOS flashes; go to http://www.evga.com/support/drivers/ and find the right ones yourself otherwise you might seriously hose your mobo :)


Yes.

I tried to flash my bios already via windows, but the Nvidia program needed to do it won't run at all. I also tried via CD rom and the program loads and says press "Y" to flash, "N" to quit - neither command does anything at all.


So, if I buy a separate network card, can I get away with a cheap 10/100 PCI card? Or do I need to buy the more expensive gigabit PCI-E cards? I just need the same performance as what my motherboard had - that seemed fine.

Thanks a lot for the help guys, this is actually much better info than I thought I would get as I thought I had tried everything :)

[ricosuave]

I have a PCI 10/100 NIC you can have for free, it will work for you until you get the issue figured out.

pm me if you want it

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by ricosuave
I have a PCI 10/100 NIC you can have for free, it will work for you until you get the issue figured out.

pm me if you want it

Thanks for the offer but it looks like my Dad has a couple hanging around as well.

My only concern is that it looks like my on board LAN is 10/100/1000, so will I notice a performance difference using a cheap 10/100 card?

EDIT: It appears a friend of mine found a 10/100/1000 card for me for free, so I'll be trying that if I can't get the onboard working.

Thanks.

[Thaco]

unless your router and other computers in your house are 10/100/1000 you wont see a difference.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by Thaco
unless your router and other computers in your house are 10/100/1000 you wont see a difference.

My router is I think (Dlink DIR-655) but I don't know if my Netbook is or not (10/100 built in, but it has wireless N).

[benyl]

1Gb is only important for transferring files within the network. It won't matter for internet connections.

Wireless N might see 150 Mbs, no where near 1000

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by benyl
1Gb is only important for transferring files within the network. It won't matter for internet connections.

Wireless N might see 150 Mbs, no where near 1000

Oh ok, well then I don't think it would matter for me because that is the only other thing I transfer files to. I'm really only concerned about actual wired internet performance for games/downloads. Previously when I hooked up my netbook via cable to my network, I could get 12MB/s transfer, but only 1.5MB/s over the wireless.

Thanks.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Good news! I got it working, but not in the way I expected to.

Downloading the beta drivers didn't help, but what I did do was install another 4GB of ram (just because I had it) and also a PCI 10/100/1000 network card. I put everything together and started my computer up again, with the network cable in the new NIC. All of a sudden, a window opens and windows starts loading drivers for different things, including my nvidia onboard LAN - everything BUT the NIC I just installed. So, I pulled the cable out of the NIC and put it into my motherboard LAN and all of a sudden I have internet - excellent. I have no clue what caused this but it can only be one of 3 things:

1) The extra ram (extremely unlikely, almost impossible)
2) Putting in a separate NIC kickstarted some sort of driver search
3) Completely removing the power from my computer (I think this is it ).

So, I decided to do a quick reinstall of windows 7 because of all the crap with drivers I have been doing, I didn't want anything left behind causing problems down the road. After I reformat....no internet. Just as I was about to hurl my computer out of my 4th storey window, I decided I would try just disconnect the power to my computer for a few seconds. I did that, and it worked - so I think thats all I had to do all along. I could probably even uninstall the NIC i put in, but I am not going to risk it!

Anyways thanks again for the help guys, I am good to go, however I wouldn't have guessed that this is how my problem got solved.