LNE100TX NIC - XP compatible?

[Ryukumu]

The topic kinda says it all, but I'll explain what's going on.

I recently upgraded to Windows XP. Yay. But this thing has not been very stable at all... for the first couple of weeks it would crash about once a day, and the error report thingy had no clue what the problem was. The crash logs in Event Viewer reported that each crash had the EXACT same error code, letter-for-letter. I'm not 100% sure, but I think each time it crashed, I was downloading something. Eventually that problem died down and hasn't happened again for another two weeks.

I also noticed that about once every hour and a half or so, I would lose my server connections to IRC, MUCK, AIM, everything. I could reconnect after about two seconds with no problems, but naturally this was driving me insane.

All the while, I was using the native drivers built into XP for my Linksys LNE100TX NIC card.

After being advised to do so from a friend, I went to Linksys' website to get new drivers for my NIC card, just in case. I never COULD find XP drivers. It gave instructions on how to install XP drivers, but whenever I download a driver set (with drivers for all flavors of Windows, Linux, etc), there was never XP drivers. I figure I'd try putting in the Win2K drivers just to see how it'd work.

Well, the latter problem went away. I was able to stay connected the entire day and not lose my connection once. BUT a little while ago this computer blue-screened (I disabled auto-restart). I restarted the machine, then Windows came up saying there was some kind of device driver conflict, though it couldn't tell me what was having the conflict.

Considering that the drivers for my NIC are the only ones I've tinkered with, and the first problem I mentioned, I think my NIC is at fault.

I later went to Microsoft's XP compatibility website and I didn't find ANY Linksys NICs listed there...

Is my NIC just not XP compatible?

EDIT: I'm looking some more at the XP compatibility website, and according to the listings, the v5 revision of the card is XP compatible. The v4 card (what I'm using) is not even listed. Greeeeeat...

 

[bbqweed]

Linksys is compatable with Microsoft. The reason you don't see the cards on the MS website as being approved is that MS cahrges an exorbitant amount just to have there Windows logo on the box. That is probably why you my see a message that says..."drivers are not digitally signed by microsoft". I have the same card....and have run it in Windows XP fine.

Check your IRQs, cuz if you have IRQ conflict...that would explain disconnects...or even lockups.

 

[Ryukumu]

How can I tell if it's an IRQ conflict? I'm looking up IRQs in 'Resources by Connection' in Device Manager, and there aren't any red X's or anything. Though there's a lot of stuff sharing IRQ 9... video card, sound card, NIC card, others...

And if it IS an IRQ conflict, what can I do to fix it? ^_^;

 

[Workin']

The machine I'm typing this on is connected using a Linksys LNE100TX v4 and hasn't had a problem ever. Using the drivers that XP installed for it.

If you had an IRQ conflict it typically wouldn't work at all. Maybe you have some software installed that interferes? Or another hardware problem (memory?) that shows up as this failure?

 

[Devistater]

I also have a linksys LNE100TX, its an older one (before version 4 even), but my windows XP pro had no problem detecting it, so I've never installed drivers for it.

It works great for me. Never had problems with it in XP, or 98 the past couple years, and our family computer has been using one in 98 for several years now.

 

[FUBAR]

The easiest way to fix IRQ problems, and most error free should you change things in the future, would just to be to switch the card from it's current slot to the one right next to it. Most (if not all) modern MB's assign IRQ's by slots and usually, i believe, you split the bank of slots halfway and then they share irq's with the same position on the other set. That's confusing, so here's an example...

Your board has 5 PCI and 1 AGP (which is identical to a PCI slot for this purpose) so 6 slots. You then split after the 2nd(real) pci slot. Then AGP and the 3rd PCI slot share, 1st and 4th PCI, 2nd and 5th PCI.

kapish?

 

[Ryukumu]

Hmm... I'll take a look at that later on. Who knows, that might be what the problem is. I'll let you know later how it turns out.

 

[JackMDS]

NIC and Video Card are not good in sharing (they missed the sharing class in Kindergarten).

One thing can be tried short of changing PCI Slots.

Boot the computer into the Motherboard BIOS.

In the PnP/PCI section where you can assign, PNP OS installed, if it says Yes
Change it to No, or if it says NO change to Yes. Reboot and see what takes
place.

Doing so usually forces the system to reorganize the IRQs.

Be aware that this process may change the whole system IRQ assignment.

*********************************

And a Lot of Good Luck.

 

[bbqweed]

Ryukumu,

Though there's a lot of stuff sharing IRQ 9... video card, sound card, NIC card, others...

There's your IRQ conflict there. When windows says that the device is working properly,...9/10 times that means that the drivers are installed fine. Now as for the IRQs, if the NIC is sharing an IRQ with a video card or sound...that is VERY BAD. NICs can usually only share IRQ with usb host controllers (as long as no usb devices are being used) or ACPI holder for PCI IRQ steering.

Video or sound is a no-no.


as for:

If you had an IRQ conflict it typically wouldn't work at all. Maybe you have some software installed that interferes? Or another hardware problem (memory?) that shows up as this failure?

This is not always the case. Things may work fine...but lets say we pull up a website, the computer would then need to access the NIC to get data from the modem, but the video also needs to refresh the screen. This causes a tug-of-war type of scenario and your computer will either lock up, or drop connection...or you will pull up no IP address from whatever your NIC is attached to.

With sound...some pages have embedded sound...and thus causes same problem,

2 Ways to fix this:

1- try installing nic into a different PCI slot so that the mobo possibly assigns the card a different IRQ

or...if that's a no go...

2- assign the pci slot an IRQ manually through system bios...if you don't know how to do that...i recommend contacting the system/mobo manufacturer....

 

[Ryukumu]

Okay, I am royally confused. I haven't tried switching the card to a different slot to cancel out the IRQ conflict, but for the past day or two it hasn't had any disconnect errors...

I think what I'll do instead is take it back to the shop where I had WinXP installed and ask THEM to fix it. They're the pros, I'm not. And the thing hadn't been working right since THEY touched it anyway. Considering that, and that I'm a semi-regular at this store so they might cut me a break, and that this box is under warranty, I shouldn't have to pay to get this thing fixed. ^_^;;;

 

[Devistater]

Hahahahaahahah. Good luck. I would be extremely surprised if they had any idea of what to do. They will probably tell you whatever will make you happy.

 

[Ryukumu]

The more I work with this thing, the more I'm confused... oddly enough, I haven't had any disconnect errors when leaving my computer online the past two nights. Not a one. Zip. IRC downloads that take 3+ hours go fine (unless the person I'm downloading from leaves, but there's no helping that). What have I done differently those two nights? I signed off of AOL Instant Messenger.

That may be totally unrelated. Who knows. I'm confused. x_X Still putting it in the shop though.

 

[Salvador]

NIC's are totally weird. I have this Linksys NIC and it worked great in everything except for Win2k. In Win2k, it was really slow. I tried just about every driver I could find and it never did fix the problem.

I then recently bought a OEM Cnet NIC off of someone to run in a different machine. It worked perfectly in XP and Win2k, but really lags in WinME. Once again, I've been trying to use any driver I can get my hands on and nothing seems to help.

Anyway.. Hope you get this solved. Sorry that I can't be of more help.

Sal

 

[Ryukumu]

I see... well, last I checked, the NIC is working a lot better now. A lot better. If this thing still isn't working right, I have not ruled out buying a whole new NIC all together. But again, it's working better for now.