Reminder on installing a NIC

The majority of the advice I found in
searching this newsgroup about how to
install a network interface card leads
to excessive optimism that Windows will
recognize new hardware.

So this is for the benefit of, you know,
the six people in the world who still
need to add an Ethernet card to a Windows
98 system. In my case, I want to download
software to an old 200MHz Pentium box to use
it as a dedicated controller of a digital
camera.

When I installed Windows 98 SE on a clean hard
drive, it never saw the NIC (an SMC EZ Card
1244) that was plugged in. When I subsequently
tried to use the "Add Hardware" icon, the
choices it presented, to make a long story short,
didn't provide for locating the drivers on
the CD-ROM that came with the card. I had
deleted all the stuff in the Network icon
list box that everybody says has to be deleted.
I had also gone to the System icon and
deleted everything under "Network adapters."
This didn't work, so I then pulled the card,
rebooted, replaced the card and rebooted, looking
for Windows to announce new hardware, which
it didn't.

Finally I found a posting that mentioned
the "PCI Ethernet Controller." I went to
the System icon again, found it lurking
in the device lineup, and deleted it.
This did it. I didn't even have to reboot.
I simply used the "Add hardware" icon, which this
time gave me a series of pop-ups that identified
the card and allowed me to designate the CD-ROM
as the source for the driver. When this sequence
was finished, I used the Run widget to execute winipcfg
to release and refresh the IP, and I was on-line.

--
Charles Packer
mailboxATcpacker.org
http://cpacker.org/whatnews



mailbox@cpacker.org

Although I didn't have the exact same problem, I can identify with what you
are saying and agree that 98SE seems to have a number of problems with NICS
and setting up Ethernet connections. I was also told that Windows will sort
it - wrong it didn't and revealed a known problem in this software of not
being able to find the drivers even though you tell it where they are
located. Anyway, I am going to upgrade to XP shortly - now that should be a
challenge!
Alan
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
> The majority of the advice I found in
> searching this newsgroup about how to
> install a network interface card leads
> to excessive optimism that Windows will
> recognize new hardware.
>
> So this is for the benefit of, you know,
> the six people in the world who still
> need to add an Ethernet card to a Windows
> 98 system. In my case, I want to download
> software to an old 200MHz Pentium box to use
> it as a dedicated controller of a digital
> camera.
>
> When I installed Windows 98 SE on a clean hard
> drive, it never saw the NIC (an SMC EZ Card
> 1244) that was plugged in. When I subsequently
> tried to use the "Add Hardware" icon, the
> choices it presented, to make a long story short,
> didn't provide for locating the drivers on
> the CD-ROM that came with the card. I had
> deleted all the stuff in the Network icon
> list box that everybody says has to be deleted.
> I had also gone to the System icon and
> deleted everything under "Network adapters."
> This didn't work, so I then pulled the card,
> rebooted, replaced the card and rebooted, looking
> for Windows to announce new hardware, which
> it didn't.
>
> Finally I found a posting that mentioned
> the "PCI Ethernet Controller." I went to
> the System icon again, found it lurking
> in the device lineup, and deleted it.
> This did it. I didn't even have to reboot.
> I simply used the "Add hardware" icon, which this
> time gave me a series of pop-ups that identified
> the card and allowed me to designate the CD-ROM
> as the source for the driver. When this sequence
> was finished, I used the Run widget to execute winipcfg
> to release and refresh the IP, and I was on-line.
>
> --
> Charles Packer
> mailboxATcpacker.org
> http://cpacker.org/whatnews
>

Although I didn't have the exact same problem, I can identify with what you
are saying and agree that 98SE seems to have a number of problems with NICS
and setting up Ethernet connections. I was also told that Windows will sort
it - wrong it didn't and revealed a known problem in this software of not
being able to find the drivers even though you tell it where they are
located. Anyway, I am going to upgrade to XP shortly - now that should be a
challenge!
Alan
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
> The majority of the advice I found in
> searching this newsgroup about how to
> install a network interface card leads
> to excessive optimism that Windows will
> recognize new hardware.
>
> So this is for the benefit of, you know,
> the six people in the world who still
> need to add an Ethernet card to a Windows
> 98 system. In my case, I want to download
> software to an old 200MHz Pentium box to use
> it as a dedicated controller of a digital
> camera.
>
> When I installed Windows 98 SE on a clean hard
> drive, it never saw the NIC (an SMC EZ Card
> 1244) that was plugged in. When I subsequently
> tried to use the "Add Hardware" icon, the
> choices it presented, to make a long story short,
> didn't provide for locating the drivers on
> the CD-ROM that came with the card. I had
> deleted all the stuff in the Network icon
> list box that everybody says has to be deleted.
> I had also gone to the System icon and
> deleted everything under "Network adapters."
> This didn't work, so I then pulled the card,
> rebooted, replaced the card and rebooted, looking
> for Windows to announce new hardware, which
> it didn't.
>
> Finally I found a posting that mentioned
> the "PCI Ethernet Controller." I went to
> the System icon again, found it lurking
> in the device lineup, and deleted it.
> This did it. I didn't even have to reboot.
> I simply used the "Add hardware" icon, which this
> time gave me a series of pop-ups that identified
> the card and allowed me to designate the CD-ROM
> as the source for the driver. When this sequence
> was finished, I used the Run widget to execute winipcfg
> to release and refresh the IP, and I was on-line.
>
> --
> Charles Packer
> mailboxATcpacker.org
> http://cpacker.org/whatnews
>

<snip>

>
> Finally I found a posting that mentioned
> the "PCI Ethernet Controller." I went to
> the System icon again, found it lurking
> in the device lineup, and deleted it.
> This did it. I didn't even have to reboot.
> I simply used the "Add hardware" icon, which this
> time gave me a series of pop-ups that identified
> the card and allowed me to designate the CD-ROM
> as the source for the driver. When this sequence
> was finished, I used the Run widget to execute winipcfg
> to release and refresh the IP, and I was on-line.



all you would have to have done at that point
would have been "update drivers"