Last week I had a bad case of the stomach flu. Normally that is the type of illness that is done in a single day. Not the strain I had. It was with me for a good 5 days. When it came time to take my normal flight back to the office on Monday, I wasn't able. Instead I stayed at home in Utah and rested in bed. Eventually I had to get out of bed and read e-mail.
I tried to use my Linux desktop to read e-mail, but couldn't get the computer to connect to the Internet. Normally it only takes me turning it on for a connection to happen. When that wasn't sufficient, I tried to reset my cable modem, followed by power cycling the network hub. That didn't work. The rest of the computers in the house were all connecting to the Internet just fine and so I resigned myself to the fact that I needed a new networking card.
I wanted to try one more thing before heading to the store to get a new network card. I unplugged the computer and put it up on my work bench. I pulled off the cover and checked all of the connections. I was going to vacuum out the dust, but there wasn't any. I put the computer back together and booted it up. Amazingly it worked. It turns out that the real problem was that even though the computer was turned off, the motherboard was still getting power. Simply unplugging it after turning off the computer was sufficient. I must remember that the next time there is a network issue with one of my computers.
Showing posts with label Network card. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Network card. Show all posts
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Linux Fixes Another Computer
One of my friends has been having computer problems and was about to go out and buy another computer. Rather than spending a lot of money, I had him bring the computer over so I could see if I couldn't fix the problem. Yesterday he dropped it off on the way to baseball practice when he briefly explained the issues he was having.
Windows XP wasn't recognizing the network card that was built into the computer. He went down to Best Buy where he talked with one of their "Geeks." He didn't have the computer with him and so the Geek asked several diagnostic questions. The conclusion was that the computer needed a new network card and so the Geek quickly found one for a really great price.
My friend brought the card home and installed it. He turned on the machine and installed the drivers for the new card. The new network card didn't work either. This means that the computer could not be used to browse the Internet which rendered it slightly more useful than a boat anchor (as a sailor, computers make really lousy boat anchors). So now it was my turn.
The first thing I did was go back to square one. I removed the new card the Geek had sold my friend and confirmed that Windows XP could not see the built-in network hardware. Then I put in the new card and went into the computer's BIOS to turn off the built-in network card. On his computer, it was as simple as hitting the "F1" key during the boot sequence and going to the "Advanced" menu option. Having two network cards in a computer is possible but sometimes they like to step on eachother's toes. It is advisable to have only one network card active when you are trying to debug problems like this.
Once again the network card was not recognized by Windows XP. This was a huge red flag. How do you know if the machine is bad when the the measuring device isn't working properly. In this case, the measuring device was the Windows XP operating system. I tried a simple experiment. I booted Linux from a CD. When you boot from a CD, it doesn't install anything on the hard drive and so you can test your machine's hardware without overwriting anything.
The CD takes a little bit longer than a hard drive to boot and so I went and got myself a sandwich while the computer thought about starting. Once it was up, I opened a browser window and could get to any number of websites just fine. This confirmed that it was Windows XP that needed help and not the hardware.
I told my friend that he had two options: He could reload Windows XP, which would probably fix everything, or he could install Linux. He picked up the machine this morning and will be installing Linux. I think that is a good decision.
Windows XP wasn't recognizing the network card that was built into the computer. He went down to Best Buy where he talked with one of their "Geeks." He didn't have the computer with him and so the Geek asked several diagnostic questions. The conclusion was that the computer needed a new network card and so the Geek quickly found one for a really great price.
My friend brought the card home and installed it. He turned on the machine and installed the drivers for the new card. The new network card didn't work either. This means that the computer could not be used to browse the Internet which rendered it slightly more useful than a boat anchor (as a sailor, computers make really lousy boat anchors). So now it was my turn.
The first thing I did was go back to square one. I removed the new card the Geek had sold my friend and confirmed that Windows XP could not see the built-in network hardware. Then I put in the new card and went into the computer's BIOS to turn off the built-in network card. On his computer, it was as simple as hitting the "F1" key during the boot sequence and going to the "Advanced" menu option. Having two network cards in a computer is possible but sometimes they like to step on eachother's toes. It is advisable to have only one network card active when you are trying to debug problems like this.
Once again the network card was not recognized by Windows XP. This was a huge red flag. How do you know if the machine is bad when the the measuring device isn't working properly. In this case, the measuring device was the Windows XP operating system. I tried a simple experiment. I booted Linux from a CD. When you boot from a CD, it doesn't install anything on the hard drive and so you can test your machine's hardware without overwriting anything.
The CD takes a little bit longer than a hard drive to boot and so I went and got myself a sandwich while the computer thought about starting. Once it was up, I opened a browser window and could get to any number of websites just fine. This confirmed that it was Windows XP that needed help and not the hardware.
I told my friend that he had two options: He could reload Windows XP, which would probably fix everything, or he could install Linux. He picked up the machine this morning and will be installing Linux. I think that is a good decision.
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