Gigabit Lan on Asus A7n8X-E not registering.

My A7N8X-E Deluxe MOBO has 2 Ethernet ports - a 10-100, which works perfectly, and a GIGABIT port supported by A Marvell NIC chip which has never been recognized during hardware detection and doesn't even register in the Device Manager panel.

I have tried the enable jumper on the MOBO in both positions, just in case they got it wrong in the book, but to no avail.

I installed the Yukon miniport driver that came with the MOBO and got an OK that the installation was successful - but that had no effect on anything.

Any suggestions, or do I just have a faulty NIC chip? All suggestions gratefully received - especially one that works!

Any chance there is an option in the BIOS to enable the gigbit ethernet controller?

Curiously, the BIOS has no mention of the Marvel Gigabit port although the Ethernet LAN and 1394 supported by the onboard nVIDIA chipset (both work perfectly) can be individually enabled/disabled. The Gigabit is the only I/O port to be ignored by the BIOS in this way.

Further to my original posting, has anybody ever managed to get the Marvel Gigabit LAN to work on an A7N8X-E Deluxe? I refer to the later MOBO version with the Marvel NIC and not an earlier version that used a 3-Com NIC. Any observations or suggestions would be most appreciated.

Is the jumper on the board properly set ?

http://users.skynet.be/fa426454/images/a7n8x/a7n8x-e_gigabit_enabled.png

Yes, I have tried the jumper in both positions just to be sure (see my original posting). I am also sure it was the right jumper!!!

Any unknown devices showing up in the device manager ?

No, everything else is OK. Also, the Integrated Peripherals BIOS page I see on the monitor agrees exactly with that shown in the MOBO manual - that is, no mention of the Gigabit Lan although every other port, including the onboard nVidia Lan is listed there with the option of enable/disable.

I have the same board and i am using the marvel lan, the onboard nvidia lan is disabled.

I installed from the cd then updated to the new driver ie
23/04/04 ver 7.6.1.0

No problems yet :)

good luck

If nothing works it could indeed be that the NIC is shot. I suppose it's still under warranty.

I tried disabling the nVidia Lan in the BIOS, although I would have thought both should work together. Anyhow, still no effect.

I have been assuming that the Gigabit LAN was backward compatible with the 10/100. I know all 8 wires are used for the Gigabit LAN and only 4 for the 10/100, but it was my understanding from various stuff I have read that given a 10/100 at the other end, the Gigabit terminal could work this out for itself. I don't have another Gigabit device here so I was just trying to get the Gigabit port on the MOBO to work with either another computer with a 10/100 port or my ADSL modem - which has a single 10/100 port. The intention was to use the dual LAN capability of the ASUS MOBO to share the Internet connection between my 2 PCs.

But even if my assumption concerning backward compatibility is wrong, why doesn't the presence of the Marvell Gigabit controller show up somewhere? It is not to be found in the Windows XP Hardware Device Manager nor is it reported by the Sandra monitoring software - and, as I previously mentioned, is conspicuously absent from the main BIOS. Perhaps Shiney could tell me if his Gigabit controller advertises its presence anywhere - even if the LAN is disconnected.

In any event, thanks for the suggestions.

I too am having the same problem with getting winXP to reconize the marvel driver for this board. My symptoms are exactly as stated by Ironbasher. I have noticed that windows does display a "1394 NET ADAPTER " under net adapters in system properties. This adapter uses a microsoft "miniport" type driver which is similar too the miniport driver supplied un the marvel/yukon driver set. I tried to update the 1394 net adapter using the marvel driver but windows refuses to load them reporting that cuerrent driver is is the closest match.
The gigabyte lan cannot be turned on or off in the bios it is activated by the jumpeer onboard ,but the Ieee 1394 device is switched in the bios. I tried uninstalling this net adapter and turning off the IEEE 1394 device in the bios and also disconnected the cables from their sockets but the gigabyte lan adapter is still not being reconized by windows.
I think windows is confusing the IEEE device for the gigabyte lan adapter.
How can I force windows to accept the marvel drivers in place of the microsoft drivers for this device?

I also have the A7N8X-E Deluxe board, and have both network ports installed and working. HOWEVER, every once in a while when I reboot, my Marvell adapter is not working and is "re-found" by WinXP (Pro). XP will not find the driver, but if I reinstall it from the disc it works fine (I just have to reboot again after reinstalling). Side note: after reinstalling the driver, the version of the driver is the same as Shiney's (7.6.1.0), so I'm pretty sure I've got the most recent driver.

My opinion on Ironbasher's problem, it's a bad NIC, RMA the board. I'm wondering if it's the same with mine, but mine is just periodic, not constant.

As far as backward compatibility, the Marvell adapter should work fine without any tweaking on any network, it just adds the ability for the faster transfer.

The thought by pericon that the computer might be seeing the NIC incorrectly as a IEEE1394 device is probably not valid. That's simply your "firewire" adapter, and it is a network device, which is why it shows up in that area. I have two of those in my device manager, one from my motherboard, and one from my sound card (Audigy2).

I hope this helps at least a little with those that have posted here, and if anyone has experienced the same problem I have, please let me know if you have found a solution.

Just bought the A7N8X-E board and had a similar problem.

After installing Win XP neither the SATA Raid nor the Marvell LAN adapter were found - couldn't see either in the BIOS or in windows.

I finally gave up on things and stuck a spare Netgear 310 card in slot 3 as I needed 2 NICs - and - when I booted up the PCI

(a) got the SATA controller bios message appearing after the initial bios and

(b) the Marvell Gigabit LAN appeared in the "Others" device category as an Ethernet Controller.

I thought now the machine knew it had SATA and Gigabit NIC it'd be OK so I removed the Netgear but on rebooting they had both vanished again :(

So I've now got a system with a 3rd PCI NIC disabled in devices and everything works fine.

If anyone has any idea *why* this helps please let me know. It doesn't harm anything but I don't feel too confident with the solution.

Paul.

Hey all.

Just registered to say I have the exact same problem as Ironbasher.

I've been trying to figure it out for about a month now, I dunno.

I do know that the LAN did work initially, then quit, and I still haven't figured out why.

Curious, what BIOS rev are you guys running ? I'm running the 1011 final.

Found this on the web:

I have the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe (with XP PRo) and had the same issue with the Marvell driver. I was able to correct it using information I found for the same problem with the AirNic driver (http://www.smartbridges.com/web/support/faq_an.asp#133). What it boils down to is to use regedit and remove the yukonx86 key from

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services
and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Services

Then reboot the system. Next, I used the Add Hardware wizard and was able to the install the driver succesfully.


My $0.02: use Add/Remove Hardware, tick showing hidden devices, and remove/uninstall all instances of the Gigabit lan that you can find first.

Hi Cerwinvega and others,

My Gigabit LAN never worked from the beginning and, apart from the physical presence Marvell chip on the MOBO, has never shown the slightest sign of its existence anywhere! The fact that yours gave a few initial twitches, together with the phenomena reported by others makes me suspect that the chip in question has some marginal characteristics. I have seen this type of thing before in prototype VLSI ASICs in data networks I was involved with. Typically, some timing parameter is on the the limit making the whole thing ultra sensitive to the slightest variations in software, timing of associated circuitry or physical conditions. Initially specified production test routines don't necessarily disclose all critical parametes for specific application scenarios. On top of all that the way in which the Gigabit LAN is described and that in contrast to the other LAN NICs that it does not appear on the main BIOS setup makes me think that it has been "stuck on" afterwards instead of being integrated into the system at an early stage in the MOBO design.

My guess is that somebody in ASUS knows all about this and that probably the problem has been cured (i.e better "fixes" have been found) in more recently produced MOBOs. Mine is about 9 months old and I suppose would be one of the first to use the Marvell NIC that replaced the 3-com NIC used earlier. The fact that it was replaced would suggest that it had its problems too (comments anybody?) although this might be due to strictly commercial reasons.

Personally, I have given up - unless somebody comes up with some entirely new insight. A functioning Gigabit LAN is not high on my priority list right now and I am very pleased with the A7N8X-E deluxe MOBO in all other respects. By the time I really feel the need for a Gigabit LAN I expect a new MOBO will be on the agenda.

PS to Realblackstuff

I think your input appeared while I was composing my reply to Cerwinvega. Anyhow, there is no sign of the Gigabit LAN in the "Add-Remove Software" (I suppose you meant that and not "Add-Remove Hardware" which doesn't exist in the Control Panel) nor in the suggested Reg. locations.

This tends to further confirm my theory that the Gigabit LAN is a "stuck on" extra feature never foreseen in the original MOBO design. It is clear that even where the NIC shows some signs of life, precise installation procedures involving a long list of caveats are critical. This would be fairly typical of something being shoe-horned into a hardware/software environment never foreseen to accommodate it!

Hey.

Yeah, I still love the board too, lol. I run an A7N8X DLX as well as the -E DLX, and they are great boards.

I'm gonna try a different BIOS revision though, any chance you could check and let me know what rev you are running ?

This problem DOES NOT seem to be very common at all. In fact, none of the other hardware sites I frequent mention this problem anywhere, even once.

The LAN is probably toast, no doubt, but for the great majority it appears to be working fine.

Hi Cerwinvega,

Bios info - copied directly from "System Information"

BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe ACPI BIOS Rev 1008, 05-Dec-03

I see from the ASUS download site that there have been 2 updates since that version, but neither of them have anything to do with the problem in hand, so I prefer to leave well alone.

In any event, thanks for your (and everybody else's) interest and suggestions. Taking into account your observation that problems in this area do not appear to be widely reported, I tend to agree with you that I probably have a dead Gigabyte NIC. However, I still have a suspicion that the addition of the Gigabit Lan was a fix rather than an originally planned design feature. OK, so they got away with it in most cases! However, as I said, the issue is not sufficiently important to me to start a serious campaign to get the otherwise excellent board replaced.

I use Windows 2000 Pro, so am not quite familiar with XP. I assume in that case, that you would remove/uninstall in Device Manager (if XP has that).

I only copied the text from that forum where I found the info. They use XP pro so I assumed tha Add/Remove HW exists.

Sorry to hear about your ongoing problems.

Have you tried these Intel drivers?
ftp://download.intel.com/design/motherbd/gddrivers/lan_xp2k_7.14.1.3_pc.exe

LAN: Marvell* Yukon*-EC Gigabit Ethernet Adapter Software 7.14.1.3
7.66 MB
20 June 2004

Windows XP/ control panel has an "Add Hardware" item but no "Add/Remove Hardware" item. As you suggested, removal can be done via Device Manager (exept there is no sign of the Gigabit LAN there either).

Also, I forgot to mention that the Marvell Lan driver I was attempting to install was the still current version, 6.2.8

Ironbasher,

Thanks, I'll definitely let you know what I find, if anything.

The original A7N8X (non -E) Deluxe is dual lan equipped also, albeit 3Com as opposed to Gigabit, along with the nVidia controller. On my non -E this works great. Again, this thread about somes up ALL reports of this issue, lol, we are it.

In other words, I honestly believe that if this ISN'T a bios issue, (which it probably isn't), then it is more likely a failure of the LAN hardware itself, as opposed to ASUS's implementation.

Dual LAN, after all, is a pretty common feature for boards of this generation from ASUS, and from all manufacturers in general.

OK enough rambling. Happy weekend, and I'll let ya know if I find anything worthwhile or otherwise.

EDIT: Just FYI, my -E board is about a month old, and my non-E is a rev 1.04, about a year and a half old.

Same problem on a new Asus P5AD2 Premium mobo that I just purchased. This board has two independant Marvell 88E8053 LAN controllers. Neither one appears in BIOS for me, nor does it appear as a hardware device in the Windows XP device manager.

My best guess is that it is a resource conflict. It could be...but I don't think it is a bad chip, because I have this same problme on both LAN controller chips, each with its own RJ45 connection.

My system is: Asus P5AD2, Appian Graphics Phoenix 4 head video (ATI based), 2 x 74 GB Raptors, 2 x 512 MB Corsair XMS2, NEC 3500A DVD Writer, Floppy drive, Logitech bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse, Dell 2001FP monitors, speakers.

In trying to fix the problem, I have disabled all unused hardware in the BIOS -- in an attempt to free up resources. To no avail.

I'm not sure if this is related to the LAN problem, but I have two items in my device manager that still cannot find enough free resources to load:

Intel 82801FB/FBM PCI Express Root Port - 2662
Intel 82801FB/FBM PCI Express Root Port - 2660

I get a green light on the "speed LED" indicating 100 MBit/s. However, the "Act/Link LED" is dark....it should be solid green or blinking green.

I have reloaded XP from absolute scratch (clean drives, etc), but that did not solve the problem.

At the moment, I am using a 20-pin power connector intead of the preferred 24-pin. Could that be the problem?

Has anyone figured this one out?

Marvell LAN card was conflicting for memory resources with Appian video card.

I just put a computer together with a A7N8X-E DX motherboard and AMD Athlon 2600+ processor.

I am having the same problem as a number of others in this thread... i.e. I cannot get the system to recognize the Gigabit port!

There is no sign of the device when I open Network Connections ... Nothing happens when I connect a cable to that port at the back... I double checked that the jumper on GLAN_SW was properly set (I even tried it the other way!)... When I load the ASUS CD I don't get the option to load the Marvell Gigabit LAN Driver which suggests that the system is not detecting this port as an installed device... Finally, when I look at Device Manager, there is nothing in the Network adapters except the NVIDIA NForce MCP Networking Controller and the 1394 adapter!

I did notice though that I had two unknown devices showing up in Device Manager... an ethernet controller and a RAID controller!

I have to assume that the ethernet controller is the Gigabit device... so I loaded the Marvell Yukon driver from the CD that came with the ASUS motherboard. However, when the driver installs it looks for unbound devices and didn't find any!

Any thoughts on whether or not the unknown ethernet device is in fact the Gigabit device and if so how would I go about getting the driver properly installed?

In BIOS, try finding and setting "Reset configuration data" to ENABLED and restarting.

I have the A7N8X-E DELUXE and use it with four operating systems - it works well with all.

Soul Harvester... Could you be a bit more specific please... where in the BIOS does one find "Reset configuration data"? Also, what does this do?

You mention that you use this board with 4 OS's... but do you use the Gigabit port?

Yes captain john, I use the gigabit connection for all four. Windows 98 SE, Windows XP Pro, Gentoo Linux (2.6.8) and Debian (2.4.20)

I forget where that option is, I am at work now but will check it when I get home

I just obtained an A7N8X-E Deluxe MOBO to replace a A7N8X Deluxe which had gone bad. I am using Win XP Pro and had both LAN ports on the A7N8X enabled and working.
Since installing the new A7N8X-E Deluxe, I, like many others here cannot get the Marvell LAN port to work. When I went to install the drivers from the CD, the choice to install the Marvell LAN did not even show up.
When I rebooted, I got the Add New Hardware wizard popping up and asking to install drivers for an Ethernet controller. I downloaded the drivers from ASUS and installed them as instructed. No luck. I emailed tech support at ASUS and they said to make sure the jumper block was enabled. :knock: NO ROCKET SCIENTIST THERE!! :knock: I did check the jumper block again, rebooted but no luck.
Has anybody come up with a logical solution to the problem yet?

Thanks.

I also have this problem.
win2000pro, a7n8x-e deluxe
ethernet controller is there in the system management, but in no way am I able to make windows recognize any driver for it.
I thought it was a 3Com 3C920B-EMB and installed a matching driver forcing windows to do it. Obviously there's a malfunctioning icon and report about it.
Now I read here that the integrated lan is changed in the latest board version.
I'll search for a Marvell 88E8001 Gigabit Lan PCI Controller driver and see.
Am I right?

I'm happy to say I solved my problem downloading a driver for the right gygabit device.

Marvell 88E8001 Gigabit Lan PCI Controller

I forced window to install it and now it works!!!!!

NB: It was definitely not included in my asus installation CD nor in any nVidia package.

Hi, guys, may be this could help some of you

The PCI Ids in the .INF file for MARVEL drivers DOES NOT MATCH the one the MARVELL 88E8001 chip returns, this prevent the driver to install.

To get the network on download the last driver for XP/2003 from the Marvell web site, unzip the file and update the .INF file with the correct PCI id

The one in the original .INF file is VEN_11AB&DEV_

replace all the occurences of VEN_11AB with VEN_1148 (the ID the 88E8001 returns) using the notepad.

Then use the manual installation process and wonder all is right now.

I do not understand why this PCI id is wrong maybe MARVELL change its vendor ID due to some conflicts or legal issue.

Hope this could help anybody.

Thanks for the post JoVankaam, I tried this and now my Marvell Gigabit LAN port is working.

Where did you find this information? I have not been able to track anything like this down anywhere I have searched.

Thanks again.

T

Hi all

Just ended some hours of debugging my friends p5ad2, we got the "usual" problem.
Marvell NIC completely unavailable in System management->device manager, added to that some of the PCI Express Root hubs were also marked with the yellow icon.

So when did it turn up?
When XP SP2 was installed! Everything worked just fine before with SP1. After install all NICs were unavailable and the PCI Express root hubs had warning symbols on them (Error code 12: This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use)

Resolution:
When looking at the installed driver for these Root hubs it turned out that the pci.sys has updated to version xpsp2, we performed a rollback driver on them and viola, everything got back to working condition.
(How to rollback: enter device manager, right click, select update driver, press the rollback button)

Additional info:
During our quest for working network we did install the very latest drivers found in the intel ftp referenced in previous post LAN_XP2K_7.24.1.3_PV.exe

NICs worked on SP2 with the supplied 7.14.1.3 driver so I dont think this matter but you never know!

Conclusion:
Dont touch a working system! We did manage to get it working again but who knows what fixes are missing now as we "downgraded" from pci.sys sp2 to sp1.

Thanks Grimmy! :wave:

Thanks to your post, I too discovered that the root cause of my problem was the pci.sys upgrade from Win XP Service Pack 2.

In addition, I have an Appian Graphics video board that may be another element interacting to cause the problem.

The pci.sys from SP2 prevented the following Asus P5AD2 motherboard devices from loading in Win XP's device manager:

Intel 82801FB/FBM PCI Express Root Port - 2662
Intel 82801FB/FBM PCI Express Root Port - 2660

This in turn prevented the onboard Marvell LAN controller from loading.

When I downgraded the pci.sys file to the SP1 version, the two PCI Express Root ports loaded properly, and Windows finally was able to 'see' and enable the Marvell LAN Controller.

Version 5.1.2600.1106 of pci.sys is attached. This is the older version that fixed my problem.

Go into safe mode and install the file in \windows\system32\drivers\. Safe mode is required because in regular mode I found that Windows reverses any modification of key system files, such as pci.sys -- e.g., I would copy in the replacement SP1 pci.sys and within a couple seconds the SP2 file would show up again in its place. Hover over the file in a file manager window and you can see its version number.

Having said all this, I'm not comfortable with this as a long term solution. Pci.sys is now out-of-sync with the rest of the SP2 files. It will have to do for now.

We need to let Asus know about this problem so that they can pursue a proper solution with Microsoft.

Good luck.

Hi, guys, may be this could help some of you

The PCI Ids in the .INF file for MARVEL drivers DOES NOT MATCH the one the MARVELL 88E8001 chip returns, this prevent the driver to install.

To get the network on download the last driver for XP/2003 from the Marvell web site, unzip the file and update the .INF file with the correct PCI id

The one in the original .INF file is VEN_11AB&DEV_

replace all the occurences of VEN_11AB with VEN_1148 (the ID the 88E8001 returns) using the notepad.

Then use the manual installation process and wonder all is right now.

I do not understand why this PCI id is wrong maybe MARVELL change its vendor ID due to some conflicts or legal issue.

Hope this could help anybody.


My friend has this board and we can't get his LAN connection to work. I downloaded the latest drivers from the site, the 7.2413 version and I changed the VEN numbers as you said, but when I go to chose those drivers it says its not compatible. I assume its cause the vendor IDs don't match. If I leave them alone the drivers will install but I get no improvement in the network.

On a side note, it did install the LAN connection(Marvell Yukon 88E8001/8003/etc) in my network connections but it will constantly stay at "acquiring network address" when I plug a connection in. The first network connection is the NVIDIA nForce MCP Networking and that doesn't work either.

As of right now he has no way of getting on the net or getting a LAN connection, what are we doing wrong?

I'm happy to say I solved my problem downloading a driver for the right gygabit device.

Marvell 88E8001 Gigabit Lan PCI Controller

I forced window to install it and now it works!!!!!

NB: It was definitely not included in my asus installation CD nor in any nVidia package.

Hi all. Same problem here. I did everything that you say, but can't make this thing work.
One question. How do you "force" Windows to install a driver?
And another. How may I know the PCI id from my Marvel 88E8001 chip? Because I tried the solution proposed by JonVanKaam and XP keep saying that the location doesn't have information about the hardware.

Thanks in advance, and sorry about my lame English.

Hello Everyone,

Thank you so much for posting this information. I finally got my onboard nic working with the help of this posting.

After I install service pack 2 I was not able to use my onboard nic card (Marvell 88E8053 PC Express Gigabit Lan Controller)

I also noticed the following devices were not working properly:

Intel 82801FB/FBM PCI Express Root Port - 2662

So I rolled back the drivers and not my nic card is working.

To roll back the drivers
go to my computer
--> manage
--> Device Manager
--> System devices
---> double click on driver name
---> go to driver tab
---> click on Roll back

Thanks again.

Hi, guys, may be this could help some of you

The PCI Ids in the .INF file for MARVEL drivers DOES NOT MATCH the one the MARVELL 88E8001 chip returns, this prevent the driver to install.

To get the network on download the last driver for XP/2003 from the Marvell web site, unzip the file and update the .INF file with the correct PCI id

The one in the original .INF file is VEN_11AB&DEV_

replace all the occurences of VEN_11AB with VEN_1148 (the ID the 88E8001 returns) using the notepad.

Then use the manual installation process and wonder all is right now.

I do not understand why this PCI id is wrong maybe MARVELL change its vendor ID due to some conflicts or legal issue.

Hope this could help anybody.

Thanks a lot for this...
I had the same problem. After doing a lot of search I finally found this Forum and your advice. Everything now works pretty well !!
Xaverion

Thanks so much to Grimmy and ELW! I was running my Appian Rushmore quad video card fine on my networked Dell Dimension 4600. But when I installed everything on my new Dell Precision 470, the onboard NIC did not show up in device manager. Your instructions for downgrading the pci.sys file to the 5.1.2600.1106 version were super. I now have everything working. However, whenever I restart or shut down, I have to re-enter the file again. I did copy the file into c:\windows\system32\drivers while in Safe Mode as you suggested. Any ideas? Should we revert back to SP1 entirely instead of just this one file? Thanks a bunch again--I'd been working on this problem for two weeks. Please let us know if you find a permanent solution.

I have one here, that can't configure gigalan, tried modify driver, but windows don't recognize. Why few persons have this problem? thanks

I am having a similar problem with mine but with a little twist.
It never did see the marvell adapter. When I decided to add a couple SATA drives I enabled SATA and put the drives in. The SATA bios did not appear. I tried many thing to fix this. Thinking I can't use the gigabit connection anyhow, I disabled it with the jumper. I rebooted the system and my SATA is now working, if I enable the gigabit, SATA does not work. And the gigabit is missing. :confused:

In 8 (eight) moterboards, only one was with this problem. I supose that it's damage. i give this motherboard to fornecedor (store) ande the other is ok. I think that de gigabit lan was avariated.

Stock Lady, do a search of your entire hard drive for pci.sys. There is probably a copy of the newer Sp2 version sitting on your hard drive somewhere. Replace all copies with the older SP1 version. Reboot and do another search. Hover over each file to check the version number.

In the end I scrapped my Appian card and switched to 100% Matrox cards. My opinion is that they are better.

Good luck.

Thanks so much to Grimmy and ELW! I was running my Appian Rushmore quad video card fine on my networked Dell Dimension 4600. But when I installed everything on my new Dell Precision 470, the onboard NIC did not show up in device manager. Your instructions for downgrading the pci.sys file to the 5.1.2600.1106 version were super. I now have everything working. However, whenever I restart or shut down, I have to re-enter the file again. I did copy the file into c:\windows\system32\drivers while in Safe Mode as you suggested. Any ideas? Should we revert back to SP1 entirely instead of just this one file? Thanks a bunch again--I'd been working on this problem for two weeks. Please let us know if you find a permanent solution.