I've got a workstation with multiple network-related problems, and haven't made any headway on fixing any of them. The workstation has an onboard 10/100 adapter, and a PCI gigabit NIC installed. The gigabit NIC has been in use for several months, without any problems until today.
ERRORS AND PROBLEMS: - The onboard NIC cannot be enabled. It gives a "Connection failed!" error directly after the "Enabling..." message. - The PCI NIC has the same problem as above, but only if I manually disable it first. - The PCI NIC will sometimes connect at 1Gbit/s to a gigabit switch, and sometimes only 100Mbit/s. - The biggest problem is that no network activity will work over the PCI NIC. I cannot ping any computer on the network, including those connected to the same switch. All other systems on that switch can access the network without a problem. - Using the PCI NIC, the computer will, every so often, work right after startup. It only lasts for a few seconds (long enough to load up the homepage of IE), then it stops working. - The onboard NIC will obviously not take a network connection, since the adapter will not allow itself to be reenabled.
WHAT I'VE TRIED: - Swapping the network switch directly connected to the computer for another one that is known to work. No change. - Swapping the port the computer is connected to on the switch. No change. - Used a different patch cable known to work between the computer and the switch. No change. - Tried two other gigabit PCI adapters, one the same model as the existing card, and one a different model. No change. - Reinstalled the adapter drivers. No change. - Cleared the ARP cache and flushed the DNS. No change. - Tried a winsockfix.exe file that usually fixes about 50% of network-related problems I come across. No change. - Tried a different PCI slot on the motherboard. No change. - Tried changing the onboard NIC to disabled in the BIOS. No change. - Tried a system restore to an earlier date. No change.
OTHER NOTES: - Looking at the packets being sent and received from the network card, the "sent" byte count will continue to rise at a steady rate, but the "received" byte count stays the same. - I've tried another desktop and a laptop on the same network connection and they both work fine, leading me to believe it is a hardware or software problem with the computer itself.
Any ideas? This problem has been confounding me all day, and I'm not sure what other steps I can/should take. The only thing I can think of is to perform a full reformat and reinstall of Windows, but I'd like to avoid that if at all possible.
