No connection, what have I missed?

Hi

I've just spent the best part of a day on this and not solved it, what
have I missed? (I'm an Internet software developer, but networks aren't
my everyday thing).

I've a Windows 98 machine connected by cable to a Linksys WAG54G 4 port
router with wireless 802.11g and inbuilt ADSL/broadband connection.

Since Sunday, this machine's only very occasionally and then very, very
slowly recognised its network connection (eg. 1 out of 10 times it'll
load Google but stall and fail on the final part of the Google logo
image).

I've another Windows 98 machine connected the same way, and it works
fine. I swapped the Ethernet cards over and still it's the original
machine with the problem. I replaced the cable too.

The wireless machines work OK, so the router has a connection to the
Internet and is serving OK. I tried plugging the errant machine into a
different port, and that didn't help. I tried the Ethernet card in a
different PCI slot with no improvement. I can't make this machine
wireless because for the Linksys adapters I'm using it requires SE, and
this is vanilla '98.

The Ethernet cards are D-Link DFE-530TX 10/100Mb fast ethernet
adapters. They have two green lights near the plug socket. On the
working machine they are both on. On the errant machine, they are off
and occasionally light momentarily together.

On the Linksys router, the light for the errant port is off with
occasional traffic flashes (I presume, anyway). The working port is
better described as 'on, with off flashes for traffic'.

The errant machine's fan failed earlier in the week and so has a new
power supply and fan (fitted by someone else). I think I can assume
I've covered all the static and/or unseating possibilities by swapping
the cards, though. Unless the PSU is very small wattage and isn't
handling the cards, but from memory the only other thing in it is a
graphics card .. it's an old machine with a new psu, I wouldn't expect
a problem.

The Linksys seems to work as a switch so I wasn't able to watch traffic
with tcpdump, but I'm going back on Thursday to have another play, and
I'll take a simple router with me so I can get in there and see.

The thing that I think I'm weakest on is the W98 setup. I've been
removing the card in the System>Hardware bit, and removing it in
Networking and then re-installing it from the DLink CD which all seems
to go without a hitch, but the result is it doesn't seem to be picking
up DHCP settings properly (not at all, actually) even though I think
I've got all the settings right. Do I need to do something to remove
the old vestiges more completely? The original setup had more things in
the networking bit, I've only got four things there now.

I'm looking for clues. Where is my weak point? What haven't I done that
I should have? Anyone?

Cheers
J

JohnNA wrote:
> Hi
>
> I've just spent the best part of a day on this and not solved it, what
> have I missed? (I'm an Internet software developer, but networks aren't
> my everyday thing).
>
> I've a Windows 98 machine connected by cable to a Linksys WAG54G 4 port
> router with wireless 802.11g and inbuilt ADSL/broadband connection.
>
> Since Sunday, this machine's only very occasionally and then very, very
> slowly recognised its network connection (eg. 1 out of 10 times it'll
> load Google but stall and fail on the final part of the Google logo
> image).
>
> I've another Windows 98 machine connected the same way, and it works
> fine. I swapped the Ethernet cards over and still it's the original
> machine with the problem. I replaced the cable too.
>
> The wireless machines work OK, so the router has a connection to the
> Internet and is serving OK. I tried plugging the errant machine into a
> different port, and that didn't help. I tried the Ethernet card in a
> different PCI slot with no improvement. I can't make this machine
> wireless because for the Linksys adapters I'm using it requires SE, and
> this is vanilla '98.
>
> The Ethernet cards are D-Link DFE-530TX 10/100Mb fast ethernet
> adapters. They have two green lights near the plug socket. On the
> working machine they are both on. On the errant machine, they are off
> and occasionally light momentarily together.
>
> On the Linksys router, the light for the errant port is off with
> occasional traffic flashes (I presume, anyway). The working port is
> better described as 'on, with off flashes for traffic'.
>
> The errant machine's fan failed earlier in the week and so has a new
> power supply and fan (fitted by someone else). I think I can assume
> I've covered all the static and/or unseating possibilities by swapping
> the cards, though. Unless the PSU is very small wattage and isn't
> handling the cards, but from memory the only other thing in it is a
> graphics card .. it's an old machine with a new psu, I wouldn't expect
> a problem.
>
> The Linksys seems to work as a switch so I wasn't able to watch traffic
> with tcpdump, but I'm going back on Thursday to have another play, and
> I'll take a simple router with me so I can get in there and see.
>
> The thing that I think I'm weakest on is the W98 setup. I've been
> removing the card in the System>Hardware bit, and removing it in
> Networking and then re-installing it from the DLink CD which all seems
> to go without a hitch, but the result is it doesn't seem to be picking
> up DHCP settings properly (not at all, actually) even though I think
> I've got all the settings right. Do I need to do something to remove
> the old vestiges more completely? The original setup had more things in
> the networking bit, I've only got four things there now.
>
> I'm looking for clues. Where is my weak point? What haven't I done that
> I should have? Anyone?
>
> Cheers
> J
>
I think you have not missed much.
Ensure that the network settings on the errant machine are
the same as on the other Win98 machine.

Your description indicates a connectivity problem, as a
opposed to LAN setup or browse master (sharing) setup.

You have already eliminated the NIC and the cable and the
router. You've re-installed the drivers/software.

The best clue is the failed fan. You don't say what fan.
Desk top computer power supplies always have an internal
fan. There are other fans, such case fans, and most
importantly, a CPU cooling fan. I will speculate that when
there was some sort of catastrophic power supply failure,
one of two damages occurred: the CPU was damaged because of
overheating or because of a VCore voltage outside of the CPU
tolerance, or something similar to the L1 or L2 caches.

I hope someone else has a OS or application/drivers/setup
solution, and not my dire suggestion.

HAL wrote:
> I think you have not missed much.
> Ensure that the network settings on the errant machine are
> the same as on the other Win98 machine.
>
> Your description indicates a connectivity problem, as a
> opposed to LAN setup or browse master (sharing) setup.
>
> You have already eliminated the NIC and the cable and the
> router. You've re-installed the drivers/software.
>
> The best clue is the failed fan. You don't say what fan.

I know, that's because it's the client's description. Noise, burning
smell. What they replaced was the PSU, so I presume it was that that
went wrong.

> Desk top computer power supplies always have an internal
> fan. There are other fans, such case fans, and most
> importantly, a CPU cooling fan. I will speculate that when
> there was some sort of catastrophic power supply failure,
> one of two damages occurred: the CPU was damaged because of
> overheating or because of a VCore voltage outside of the CPU
> tolerance, or something similar to the L1 or L2 caches.

That's partly what I'm worried about, but it seems strange that it
would affect just this one thing. Unless, that is, it's affected all
the expansion slots .. I'm not using the other slots for anything.

Is there an easy way to test this?

> I hope someone else has a OS or application/drivers/setup
> solution, and not my dire suggestion.

:-) Me too, thanks anyway.

J

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:

> HAL wrote:
>
>>I think you have not missed much.
>>Ensure that the network settings on the errant machine are
>>the same as on the other Win98 machine.
>>
>>Your description indicates a connectivity problem, as a
>>opposed to LAN setup or browse master (sharing) setup.
>>
>>You have already eliminated the NIC and the cable and the
>>router. You've re-installed the drivers/software.
>>
>>The best clue is the failed fan. You don't say what fan.
>
>
> I know, that's because it's the client's description. Noise, burning
> smell. What they replaced was the PSU, so I presume it was that that
> went wrong.
>
>
>>Desk top computer power supplies always have an internal
>>fan. There are other fans, such case fans, and most
>>importantly, a CPU cooling fan. I will speculate that when
>>there was some sort of catastrophic power supply failure,
>>one of two damages occurred: the CPU was damaged because of
>>overheating or because of a VCore voltage outside of the CPU
>>tolerance, or something similar to the L1 or L2 caches.
>
>
> That's partly what I'm worried about, but it seems strange that it
> would affect just this one thing. Unless, that is, it's affected all
> the expansion slots .. I'm not using the other slots for anything.
>
> Is there an easy way to test this?
>
>
>>I hope someone else has a OS or application/drivers/setup
>>solution, and not my dire suggestion.
>
>
> :-) Me too, thanks anyway.
>
> J
>

I am not suggesting that the "slots" are bad. I am
suggesting that some elements of the motherboard may have
been fried as part of the catastrophic failure. It is
possible that the power supply failed as the cascaded result
of another component failure.


You should be able to turn the CPU L1/L2 caches on/off
through the C-MOS when the computer is booted, before it
goes into POST. With caches off, the computer will process
very very very slowly. As a matter of interest, page through
the entire C-MOS for all its settings. Maybe it is being
over-clocked (re-set it to optimal), or maybe some setting
was changed during the catastrophe. Oh say, and BTW, if you
open the case again, replace the C-MOS battery (insure you
have the full set of settings for the C-MOS, lest you have
to completely reprogram it).

Do you know for a fact that the case fan and the CPU fans
are running? Heat is the primary enemy of computers.

As far as tests. There are software diagnostics (utilities)
that run through some hardware tests. They check memory,
I/O, CPU function and speed, and the like. Google for one
that is downloadable and cheap!!!

As desperate attempts: use Scandisk to patch up files that
might have become disassociated during the failure. Get rid
of all the *.tmp files in the C:\Temp C:\TMP and
C:\Windows\Temp subdirectories. Peek into the System Device
Manager to see if there are yellow or red warnings. Maybe
that will indicate what is going on. Locate where the
Windows Swap file resides (WIN386,SWP). Swap files can get
scrambled and do funky things (but I am still voting on
hardware). Start the computer in DOS and delete WIN386.swp.
Reboot into windows. Make sure you have at least 10% free
space on the harddisk drive for the swap file (I am really
fishing here).

Thanks for all that. I wanted to check the BIOS settings but it's
password protected. Mueller suggests removing the battery as a way of
removing the BIOS password (some protection, huh?). I'm currently
weighing up whether it's better to lose the BIOS settings, or better to
have them potentially set correctly but not know what they are :-)

Oh, I didn't say. This morning the machine wasn't working. It seemed to
boot but no screen display. The screen seems to be working in as much
as it displays "no signal". It's connected. All yesterday I was
rebooting the computer and it came up fine. This morning, nothing.

Do hardware problems creep like this? Could a PSU death a week or
longer ago be causing slow destruction now?

J

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> Thanks for all that. I wanted to check the BIOS settings but it's
> password protected. Mueller suggests removing the battery as a way of
> removing the BIOS password (some protection, huh?). I'm currently
> weighing up whether it's better to lose the BIOS settings, or better to
> have them potentially set correctly but not know what they are :-)
>
> Oh, I didn't say. This morning the machine wasn't working. It seemed to
> boot but no screen display. The screen seems to be working in as much
> as it displays "no signal". It's connected. All yesterday I was
> rebooting the computer and it came up fine. This morning, nothing.
>
> Do hardware problems creep like this? Could a PSU death a week or
> longer ago be causing slow destruction now?
>
> J
>
I suppose there are good reasons to password protect the
C-MOS. Working in a very private environment with just me as
the operator of the computers, I do not password the C-MOS.

Yes. Remove the C-MOS battery and wait for several hours to
discharge the e-prom. Some motherboards have a jumper or
button that shorts out the C-MOS and dumps the memory instantly.

Are there special magic settings you have to have to set in
the C-MOS to make the computer run proper? Maybe...but I
think defaults are probably good enough to boot.

BUT: you are describing what (strongly) seems to be
failing/failed hardware. The monitor is working. It is
detecting voltage from the video card, but no signal. The
monitor is producing the no signal notice, not the computer.
I think the computer is on the downhill.

I repeat, with more clarity --the power supply may have
failed because some other hardware element failed first. The
first failure cascaded to cause a secondary failure. Or, it
could have been the PS failed first, causing a cascaded
failure on the motherboard. It makes no difference --fried
is fried. Yes "creep" can be a sign of hardware failure.

If I were you, I'd pull out the harddisk drive before it
also is attacked by the MB failure. Then, with fancy help,
I'd temporarily install that drive into another computer as
the second (slave) drive so that data can be retrieved and
preserved, through backup of some sort.

I maintain my confidence that this computer has a (fatal)
hardware failure.

RIP

Without tactile contact with this animal, I have exhausted
my analysis and suggestions.

> Without tactile contact with this animal, I have exhausted
> my analysis and suggestions.

I don't mean to come back for more .. I'm open to anyone who wants to
contribute to my learning experience here. I think we were wrong about
the hardware, but I don't know where else to look.

Here's why.

We bought a refurbished machine which had ethernet on the motherboard.
I put the hard disc from the old machine into the new one and got
exactly the same problem. I replaced the cable, no change.

So I'm not really getting a connection light at the switch (well, it
comes on occasionally, but mostly it's off). No connection light
suggests, literally, a lack of electrical connection doesn't it?

Yet this is a completely different set of hardware.

I tried another two different ethernet cards and got the same problems.
I'd get a connection, just, but it was incredibly slow and
intermittent.

The thing that's the same is the W98 setup.

So now I've ordered a copy of Windows 98 Networking (Network
Professional's Library) Brad Shimmin, Steve Klingler to try to plug my
gaps.

Can anyone shine a light for me? Or does anyone have any resources to
point me in the direction of?

I mean, what next investigative step could I have taken here? What
could I have done next to diagnose this problem? What knowledge am I
missing?

J

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>>Without tactile contact with this animal, I have exhausted
>>my analysis and suggestions.
>
>
> I don't mean to come back for more .. I'm open to anyone who wants to
> contribute to my learning experience here. I think we were wrong about
> the hardware, but I don't know where else to look.
>
> Here's why.
>
> We bought a refurbished machine which had ethernet on the motherboard.
> I put the hard disc from the old machine into the new one and got
> exactly the same problem. I replaced the cable, no change.
>
> So I'm not really getting a connection light at the switch (well, it
> comes on occasionally, but mostly it's off). No connection light
> suggests, literally, a lack of electrical connection doesn't it?
>
> Yet this is a completely different set of hardware.
>
> I tried another two different ethernet cards and got the same problems.
> I'd get a connection, just, but it was incredibly slow and
> intermittent.
>
> The thing that's the same is the W98 setup.
>
> So now I've ordered a copy of Windows 98 Networking (Network
> Professional's Library) Brad Shimmin, Steve Klingler to try to plug my
> gaps.
>
> Can anyone shine a light for me? Or does anyone have any resources to
> point me in the direction of?
>
> I mean, what next investigative step could I have taken here? What
> could I have done next to diagnose this problem? What knowledge am I
> missing?
>
> J
>
Well, it is not a completely different set of hardware,
since it is the same harddrive and same router.
Could be that when the smoke curled, the registry got cooked!!
A vanilla harddrive and different router could complete the
problem isolation.
Usually, blinking lights mean something is happening. Steady
lights usually do mean continuity of signal, not electric
current.

With the present setup, have you:
restored to a registry prior to the fire? (Don't know how
that works after a swap to another MB because of the
different system drivers/cmos)
defragged the hd and dumped the temp files?
removed the old motherboard system drivers and used the MB
install cd (not windows install) for the new motherboard
hardware ("system" drivers in device manager)?
removed or disabled from the device manager the old network
card and installed the new network card using its install cd?
removed the old network card from the network setup?
using only TCP/IP and not also NetBEUI and IPX for the new
network card?
In the TCP/IP property settings for this NIC set all the
machines for DHCP and make sure that WINS, Gateway,and DNS
tabs are disabled and windows empty.
Shut down software firewalls.
Set one of the other computers in its Files and Printer
sharing as Browse Master ENABLED, and set the browse masters
in other two to DISABLED?
set LM Announce in Files and Printer sharing to NO
powered down and rebooted the router.
powered down all the computers and sequentially fired up
first the machine with the browse master enabled next this
computer, and finally the last one?

User Friendly wrote:
> With the present setup, have you:
<snip>

In a word, no. Yowser, thanks for all that. I'm back there tomorrow,
I'll research all that and let y'all know how it goes.

Cheers
J