Asus n7n8x deluxe setup

[mikeret57]

Greetings, Set up a new computer with the asus motherboard and windows Xp. Now I am trying to get to the internet to download the most up to date drivers but cant seem to make a connection. The cable is fine as it works on my other computers on my network and when I plug in the cable, the lights come on. I have tried the wizard but nothing comes through. Any suggestions??? Thanks in advance, Mike

[S.D.Willie]

first off are we talking about a LAN connection to your nic card? have you made sure the cable is good? might want to swap it. if so how about running "ipconfig /all" in a dos prompt to see that you dont have a 169.xx.xx.xx address. if you do, power down the pc and unplug the cable modem for a bit, power on the modem, wait for the all the lights on it THEN power on your pc.

but first id make sure you go to the properties on my network places and make sure your network adapter is set up for DHCP. you will see if it is anyway if you run that command.

[CraigK]

are you using a cable modem?

[Strawbs]

Welcome to TIMO!

did you load the drivers for the network adaptors from the setup disk? The 3Com adaptor driver needs to be loaded manually ...try using the other network port!

[JohnE.]

Which drivers, if any, have you installed so far?

The neccessary drivers are on the Asus installation CD but would require you to install the older nForce chipset drivers to enable the nVidia NIC. You could install the 3Com NIC driver just to get a basic connection, then download and install the updated drivers you want. It's far easier to uninstall/update an already installed 3Com driver than it is to update an already installed nForce chipset driver package, trust me (been there, done that, lol).

Keep in mind that you have 2 NIC's... you may have to play with Network Connections to determine which NIC is the one connected to the modem and which is going to your network. On my system the nForce NIC is the main connection to the cable modem and the 3Com NIC is connected to my other comps via a hub.

[mikeret57]

Thanks for the ideas.... I have road runner and an sure that is works well as this computer is connected to the same cable. I did not manually load the drivers as the last time I loaded the Nvidia drivers from the disk it crashed the system and would not allow me to even boot in safe mode. The only thing that I have installed to date is Windows XP and it was recommended for me to pull the latest drivers off the web.

I have tried both ports and see them light up when I plug in the network cable. Now I dont recall any hardware jumpers or switches to determine the port status. Are there any on the motherboard? Thanks again, Mike

[Strawbs]

No jumper switches on the board! The ports should be enabled by default in the BIOS, but there's no harm in confirming that, look under "integrated peripherals"!

Do as JohnE. suggested ...load the 3Com drivers from the CD (they usually work fine) and use that port to download the nVidia UDA from their web site.

[edit] you can find the status of the adaptors in "Device Manager" in Control Panel.

[coldfusion22]

Are you guys suggesting that you download the old nvidia lan drivers on their site rather than use the nvidia ones from the cd?

[Strawbs]

diff'rent strokes! I'm suggesting he use whatever works for him.

The problem with nForce2 drivers is their unpredictability, what works for some won't work for others ...even with the same hardware setup. The drivers posted at nVidia dated 29 July seem pretty stable here! They are currently the ones recommended by nVidia no matter what date they were created, and since they have been there for a month now without being pulled (that's a first) they must also be proving stable for others!

[JohnE.]

Are you guys suggesting that you download the old nvidia lan drivers on their site rather than use the nvidia ones from the cd?

Not sure what you mean there coldfusion22. You can't download nVidia LAN drivers from their site ... only the whole UDP package, which includes the nForce MCP NIC driver. If you mean install the latest nForce chipset UDP package from nVidia's site rather than the older Asus UDP from the CD, that is something each A7N8X owner has to discover which works best for themselves, unfortunately.

There are currently several different UDP packages to choose from:

1. Older Asus UDP (Asus customized nForce reference drivers) from the CD
2. Latest Asus UDP from the Asus website
3. nForce reference UDP 2.45 from nVidia's site
4. nForce reference UDP 2.03 from nVidia's site
5. Older nForce reference UDP's not available on the website but still floating around the net
6. Mwarhead's 2.45 Remix
7. Mwarhead's 2.03 Remix
8. Mwarhead's older Remix's (not sure if still available on his site)

I've slowly been working my way through each available option (with a fresh format/install of WinXP each time) in hopes of finding which package will fix the CD burning problems I've been having. The coasters are beginning to pile up

This task would be a lot easier if attempting to upgrade/downgrade or change individual nForce drivers didn't completely trash my system every time. It's a real shame... everything besides CD burning works great. I love the idea of this board but the actual reality of it leaves much to be desired, at least in the driver department. The UDP works great for the display drivers but majorly suxors for the chipset drivers, imo.

If you're having problems with, for instance, the IDE drivers - you have to uninstall/reinstall the whole damm thing: audio driver, audio utilities, ethernet driver, GART driver, SMBus driver, memory controller driver, IDE driver AND the display drivers, which just confuses the heck outt'a poor little Windows.

I've reinstalled WinXP THREE frickin' times today and still the coasters keep coming. I better stop before I get carried away, lol.