Can't get NIC to work

[tcochard]

I've got 3 known good NIC's and 2 known good cat5 cables. I set up a couple systems for a peer to peer network. 2 of the systems work fine, but the third will not work. I get no response from the lights on the NIC in that system. I have changed out the NIC with the known good ones and also changed the cable and yet they do not work on this particular system. They work fine in the others.

The system in question has Windows 98se, 64MB, Abit KT7A motherboard. The NIC's are a Netgear FA310TX and a 3com 3c509. Both cards work in the other systems but not in this one. They are detected by Windows 98 just fine. There are no conflicts and everything is fine in Device Manager.

I have also tried each NIC in every PCI slot on the motherboard with the same result.

Anyone have any ideas what could be causing this? Do I need to replace the motherboard?

Thanks in advance.

 

[BCYL]

Can you explain a bit how you are networking the 3 systems? are you using a hub/switch?

 

[tcochard]

I bought the Netgear networking kit. It's got 2 of the Netgear cards (for 2 of the machines, 3com in the other), 2 25' cat5 cables, and a 4 port hub.

 

[RustyNale]

Have you made sure that the 3rd system is in the same workgroup as the others? Can you ping the loopback (127.0.0.1) successfully? Can you ping any of the other system's ip addresses? What ip address are you assigning the 3rd system? I also have an Abit KT7A mobo and I didn't have to make any changes to the bios settings, however, something may have changed in your bios, check it, and make sure you have an up-to-date bios.

 

[tcochard]

Yes, I can ping the loopback and all machines are on the same subnet, etc...

Everything appears in order. I've done this before, but this just has me perplexed. I can't find any good reason why it isn't working.

 

[RustyNale]

Do you have any firewalls on any of the machines?

 

[tcochard]

No firewalls. It's a very basic setup.

 

[Choralone]

Check the in your BIOS under "Plug and Play OS" if it's set to "Yes" try setting it to "No". Or if it's set to "No" try setting it to "Yes". I've had to change that setting in several machines in order to get NIC's to work right. Don't ask me why, that just seems to work.

 

[tman28]

If you are not seeing a light on the card that means that there is not connection. Verify the port on the hub is good.