Reinstall Windows 2000 network?

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 5:42 am

Hi guys,

my Windows 2000 (SP4) network settings seem to be screwed up. I´ve had problems since I installed VMWare 4, and after I uninstalled it I obviously couldn´t clean everything. My LAN connection does not always work, can´t figure out a reason for that. Sometimes no computers show up in the network neighborhood / workgroup, sometimes only the BP6.

Is there a way to re-install only the network? I already uninstalled and reinstalled both NICs, but the problem remains. If I reinstall Win2K completely, applications should remain installed, right? But... might there be remains of my current network installation? I´m afraid of going throught the whole process just to see nothing´s changed, like it was with reinstallations of Win95/98 that didn´t give you a clean system. What if I upgrade to XP Pro or change the system folder? I know the safest way would be a clean install, but I don´t want to spend the time needed for reinstalling all applications...

Post by **Derek** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 10:34 am

Are your computers connected through a router? Are you running in DHCP mode or assigning static IPs to each computer?

If in static mode make sure the DNS settings are correct and disable UPNP in both instances.

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 11:12 am

No router, the BP6 computer shares its internet connection with the other two pcs via ICS. Static IPs. DNS settings seem to be correct... sometimes everything works, sometimes not. Don´t know what VMWare has done to the configuration, already searched the registry manually, but without avail. I also tried swapping the NICs in the BP6, but still the LAN connection broke now and then. When the LAN connection (now via RTL8139D) breaks I sometimes get the message "network cable was removed". Sometimes it helps to de- and re-activate that connection, but then sometimes it gets disconnected again, immediately or hours later. No idea what´s going on...

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 11:15 am

What is UPNP anyway? Universal plug´n´play service?

Post by **Derek** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 6:42 pm

Wolfram wrote:What is UPNP anyway? Universal plug´n´play service?

Yuppers

Not sure what the problem is; I think I remember my cousin having a similar experience though. I'll have to get him to look at this thread.

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 5:04 am

Thank you, Derek. I´ve had an old RTL8319A in that slot before whoch seemed to be defective. But it worked in another computer. A new RTL8139D also didn´t work. It seemed to be an IRQ sharing issue (8139 was in PCI slot 5). I thougt that was not possible with ACPI enabled. Then I swapped the RTL8139D and my Fritz! ISDN card, and everything was fine. Later on I installed VMware which screwed things up again. So I think it was VMWare, but I had had that other network problem before, so I´m not sure.

I´ve had a very strange IRQ problem a month ago on another computer. It´s a socket A system, ASROCK K7VM2 µATX, TBred B 1800+, Geforce 2 MX , Matrox G200, ST Audio DSP 24 Value soundcard. That worked ok with a Duron @866 before. Then I put the TBred in and the PC sometimes refused to boot, sometimes came up with a corrupted BIOS screen, sometimes it booted to Windows XP (ACPI) and everything seemed to work until I shut it down.

Thought the PSU was insufficient or I had damaged the TBred.
I don´t know why, but I decided to uninstall ACPI and install the non-ACPI HAL. That worked, and the device manager showed an IRQ conflict with the G200. I put the G200 from PCI1 to PCI3 and the problem was gone. IRQ issue or whatever, never seen an IRQ issue preventing a PC from booting. Especially strange to me is that everything seemed to work in Windows, though the audio recording /VST performance was much better when that IRQ conflict was gone.

What confused me is that this IRQ conflict seemed to "shine through" the ACPI layer. Would be interested if there is a way to find IRQ conflicts that would show up if there was no ACPI installed and that are "hidden" via ACPI, but not perfectly.

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 8:11 am

Some more information on my problem: UPNP service is set to automatic, but all settings are greyed out, so I can´t stop. Will try to deactivate though in a minute.

When I deactivate and reactivate the LAN connection in the device manager, the other computers usually show up in the network neighborhood. But when I try to transfer a large file (500MB), the connection breaks again.

Networking works perfectly with Windows 98 SE, so I´m still pretty sure it was VMware that cracked things and no hardware problem.

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 10:35 am

Update: When I deactivate UPNP, I can´t boot normally, computer hangs with sandglass at auto-logon-screen. With UPNP set to "manual" start, it is started during bootup and can´t be stopped (options greyed out). Damn...

Wolfram · Post by **Wolfram** » Fri Jan 02, 2004 10:01 am

Problem solved

But I still can´t believe it. I replaced the RTL8139D NIC with another one of the same type. And the connection works.

Some guy in a german newsgroup had insisted the NIC should be defective. I was pretty sure it wasn´t because I had already swapped the NIC-functions, ie used my 3Com for LAN and the 8139 for ADSL, and in that configuration the 3Com showed exactly the same symptoms as the 8139 had shown when it was used for the LAN connection.

I´ll check the Realtek in another computer to find out if it is really broken.