PCMCIA Network cards dying...

[hiredgoonz]

I seem to have killed two pcmcia network cards recently...they both do the same thing: the lights come on...they report themselves as working properly, but will not access the network...

One card is a 3com 10/100 and the other a linksys 10/100...I have tried them in two different laptops w/W2000, WME and Linux...same situation, cards don't work...

The 3com card was a few years old, the linksys maybe a year old...I know stuff burns out...did I just get lucky and lose 2 in a week?

[Ghost_Hacker]

Have you tried a different wall jack or a different network cable?
You might also try manually setting the cards to the speed of your network (10Mb or 100Mb). Check the internal pins on the cards to see if their bent.

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"It's just a whisper in my Ghost"

[hiredgoonz]

The cards look fine physically...tried them with different cables and different ports on the router, but they're still dead...

The situation with the one card was, I used the computer, turned it off, turned it back on a few days later and it wouldn't find the dhcp server...I think the laptop in question may be the problem...it must like to eat nics...

[Ghost_Hacker]

hehehe...you may be right http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

The last thing I can think of is to reinstall the PCMCIA drivers. I use Softex for the Dells we have here at the office, but I'm not sure if all laptops use those drivers. Anyway,Softex comes with a diagnostic program that you can run to test the PCMCIA interface. That little program has helped me pin point a problem on a few occasions.

Good Luck http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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"It's just a whisper in my Ghost"



[This message has been edited by Ghost_Hacker (edited 02-21-2001).]

[hiredgoonz]

If it were just one laptop or one OS that wasn't working I'd definitely suspect the slot...in fact, I think it's the slot on the one puter that's whacking the cards...

But neither Linux, WME or W2000 will connect to the network with the cards anymore...and once I got a new card for the non-violent laptop, it works fine in both the windows systems...

The "bad" laptop is my brother's anyway...he kept having harddrive probs with it, so he gave it to me to play with...the hard drive has worked flawlessly since he brought it to my house, but now it destroys networking devices...oh well...thanks for the suggestions