Onboard lan problem

[MrFancypants]

A friend asked me about a strange problem I couldn't figure out on the phone. He has a MSI 770 C-45 with onboard lan, until recently everything worked fine as he used WinXP. He installed Win7 64bit and the correct drivers (chipset, lan from MSI website) but still can't get his connection working.
It seems that the device manager lists the ethernet controller as not correctly installed whereas the driver for the realtek onboard lan seems to work.

How can he get his card working again?

[G.R.A.E.M.E.]

Did he also use the Windows Update tool? It is known to cause some issues regarding drivers, because at times it'll either override the custom installed ones and use the OEM one instead.
Best bet is to try to uninstall the Realtek drivers, perform a complete Windows Update process and then followed by a custom driver installation found on the MSI website.

If that didn't work, it could also be an indication of hardware that's faulty, although that is doubtable since it kind of worked recently, from what I gathered.

#

Apparently there's also another possible fix to this error, although it is a rather odd one. Quoting this from the person who posted this fix:

Originally Posted by Anonymous

It is possible for the PHY to be placed into an 'awkward' mode.
There can also be unfortunate interactions between the PHY and
the PHY of the device to which it is connected.

If the the motherboard has the feature of being able to 'wake on lan',
then the ethernet interface is powered even when the motherboard is off.
As long as the power supply is still plugged in, then the network
interface will still be powered.

Completely removing power (and keep in mind there are capacitors
in the power-supply which could run the network interface for
some time even with power cord unplugged) for long enough,
will permit a hard-reset of the PHY.

So in short, completely power off the system and drain the caps by holding the power button for 30 seconds or so. Also might want to disable WoL (Wake on Lan) feature of the mobo beforehand.
You do this by going to the device manager and clicking on the network adapter. Go to its properties and then to power management. Then uncheck "Allow this device to wake the computer".

You'll probably also want to do these two steps:

Click the "Advanced" tab, and then in the "Property" box, click the "WakeOnLAN From Poweroff" or "Wake from Shutdown" selections if available. Click "Disable" in the "Value" box. Note that the "WakeOnLAN From Poweroff" and "Wake from Shutdown" selections may have slightly different but similar names depending upon the network adapter manufacturer. If they are not listed then proceed to the next step.

Click "Wake on Magic Packet" in the "Property:" box, and then click "Disable" in the "Value:" box. Note that the "Wake on Magic Packet" selection may be named differently or not listed, depending upon the network adapter manufacturer.

[MrFancypants]

Thanks for the reply. But it turns out that guy actually had an ancient (10 years+) PCI network adapter installed and used that one instead of the motherboard's integrated adapter.

Solving PC problems over a distance can be problematic

[Mr. Matt]

I had this problem last time I reinstalled Windows XP on my machine. I installed the original drivers from the disc that came with the motherboard (they've always worked before, and I don't care enough to download new ones), but it still wasn't able to connect. It turned out that I had deactivated the LAN hardware in the BIOS settings somehow. Presumably when my hands mashed the keyboard enough to set the boot order to the DVD drive. But I'm guessing if this was the problem, it wouldn't show up in the device manager on Windows. I don't know, I never checked that.

I'd suggest the driver issue as outlined above, then.