Asus/Nvidia onboard Network Issues with Vista

[jesse.johnson]

I've been running the below set-up with XP for almost a year. I recently reformatted my OS drive with Vista due to some pesky Malware and Virus problems. Anyway, I installed Vista Ultimate 32 Bit and everything was working fine. I ran windows updates twice and after the second time my network no longer works. I have tried updating the network drivers with latest on Nvidia downloads. No luck. I have a feeling that these Nvidia drivers are incompatible with one of the Vista updates? I'm putting in a PCI NIC card for now but would like to fix the onboard network. Does anyone have any ideas on what I can try to resolve this networking problem? Maybe use a genaric driver for the network driver?


PC Case: Thermaltake Soprano DX VE7000BWS Black 0.8mm SECC Chassis/ Aluminum Front Bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Power Supply: Ultra X-Finity 600W
Motherboard: ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus nForce 650i Socket 775 ATX
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
P Cooling Fan: Thermaltake CL-P0401 V1 110mm Full-Range Fan CPU Cooler
OS Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3160815AS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Media Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Memory (RAM): OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Memory Model OCZ2N800SR4GK
Video Card: EVGA e-GeForce 8800GT Superclocked 512MB 256-bit DDR3 PCI-E 2.0 Video Card
DVD/CD Drive: DVD Drive
CD Drive/Burner: Dell CD/RW
DVD/CD Burner: Lite-on DVD/RW 20X
Media Reader: Rosewill All In One

 

[Adhmuz]

Chances are one of the windows drivers replaced something important required for proper functioning of your on board network controller, try uninstalling them first and then reinstalling with the latest nForce driver from Nvidia's site the latest I can find is 15.23. Before you do actually install it boot into same mode and run a program called driver sweeper and use it to get rid of the nVidia chipset files. After that reinstall with 15.23 and see if that works. Just as a note when installing new drivers for video cards and similar hardware you should always run driver sweeper to get rid of all traces so you have a clean slate to install on to. Give it a try, post a reply with your results.

 

[jesse.johnson]

I did 4 things:

I used the driver sweeper program in safe mode for NVidia network and cleared all driver. Then Went into Vista and gave the Network the most up dated NVidia driver.

I reset the motherboard by unplugging computer and holding power button for 5 seconds.

I uninstalled the NVidia Forceware Network Manager tool.

I rebooted my cable router again.

When I rebooted the Onboard Network was working, not 100% sure which step had worked, may have been a combo of them.

Thanks for the help on this.

*note, afterwards I also updated my BIOS because there was a fix on the NVidia onboard network about when it goes into sleep mode the network fails to reconnect.

 

[adweston]

I'll tell you exactly what happened. When you first installed the drivers on the fresh install, you installed the nForce drivers. When you did the Windows updates, it installed the wrong ones and completely borfed your NIC. You have an nVIDIA network enumerator. You're going to have to completely remove any and all nVIDIA drivers and start over again to fix that mess. Don't let Microsoft update your nVIDIA drivers or you'll go bald well before your time.

 

[kimsland]

*note, afterwards I also updated my BIOS because there was a fix on the NVidia onboard network about when it goes into sleep mode the network fails to reconnect.

Is this the one you installed ?

2008/12/26
BIOS Version 1701
Description P5N32-E SLI BIOS 1701.
Fix PCIE VGA card might fail to function when being plugged in the third PCIEx16 slot.

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5N32-E SLI