# Network Adapter not shown



## Defuret (Oct 4, 2006)

I just reinstalled windows XP onto my computer (which already had a network adapter that worked and all that). However, I now find that no NA is listed in device manager. Under the DM tab all I see is "WAN...blah blah" and "Direct Parellell" or something similar. There is nothing remotely ressembling my network card. I did a "check for new hardware" and nothing turned up.

Why did it just dissappear like that?


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## whardman (Jun 28, 2006)

Is it a nic card or onboard nic? If it is onboard what motherboard do you have? If it is a nic card which one.

Check in the device manager and see if there is anything listed as unknown device. I know that if it is an intel nic you will have to install the drivers as they are not provided with XP.


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## Defuret (Oct 4, 2006)

I don't know the difference between onboard and NIC...I'm not to technologically advanced. If you'd explain the difference I could probably tell. I do however, have something listed as "ethernet controller" under unknown devices. Does that have to do with anything?

As for drivers, I've tried installing a few but either they do nothing or they tell me to "click on the appropriate network adapter". Of course, there isn't one.


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## Cellus (Aug 31, 2006)

A network adapter is known as a NIC, or a Network Interface Card (you've been coining the term NA). Onboard is simply a term that the NIC is built into the motherboard and isn't a separate expansion card you slot in. You can easily tell on the back if where you plug in your ethernet cable is either residing where a card would be in the lower section or attached to the motherboard in the upper section.

It looks like Windows is unable to locate the proper drivers for your NIC. What you will need to do instead is find out what make and model your NIC is (if it's onboard, then look up the specifications for the adapter by looking up your motherboard, it it's in the form of an expansion card you will need to look its model up - Google will help you). Once you find out what the make and model of your NIC is, you can find the drivers for it at either the manufacturer's website or some driver repository website. If you have the documentation for your computer this can help you figure out what it is.

So, we need to find out what your NIC is and then get the proper drivers for it.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

Was this issue ever resolved?

I'm having nearly the same experience with a recently installed version of XP Pro and would love to hear how this issue was resolved.

I recently bought an HP Pavillion Slimline s7700y that came with an Onboard NIC. The machine came with a MOCA-AR Motherboard and according to the motherboard specs, the Onboard LAN is a Realtek RTL8100 10/100 Mbps (I'm assuming that's the NIC). Here is a link to the MOCA-AR motherboard specs:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00783647&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=&product=3355070

I've downloaded every driver I can find...from the Realtek site, to googled sites that had the specific driver and yet still cannot get XP to recognize my network adapter. (Under the Device Manager, the "Ethernet Controller" still contains a "yellow question mark") Any ideas of what more to do? Am I looking at the wrong spec? 

I even ran a "Diagnostic" program that I downloaded from the Realtek site on the advice of one of the Realtek technicians in the hopes to find out if my adapter was functioning properly. When I ran this program it simply came back saying "No Adapter found."

It should be duly noted that this machine came pre-installed with Vista. As the rest of the world has not caught up with Vista's launch I installed the XP OS. To do this, in the "Set-Up" portion during boot-up, I changed my Sata Controller to "IDE" as XP has issues installing on a Sata Driver. Every other device I've been able to find drivers for, but would this change to "IDE" effect my Ethernet to the point where it wouldn't matter what drivers I was installing?

Any help or assistance anyone can lend would be greatly appreciated. Also, please let me know if you need further details about my machine and/or operating system.

Thanks,

- R


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

The HP Pavillion Slimline s7700y has only been out for a few months. Have you contacted HP with this issue?


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

Yeah, I've spent probably a total combined hour and a half over the phone with them. Technically speaking, they don't really "support" the issue because my issue is coming outside of the ready-made machine they sent me (I installed XP Pro over Vista)

I did get one solid technician who was able to provide a few links so that I could download the appropriate drivers for my sound, video, USB, etc issues. Again, fixing all the issues I had going...now the only device not working is the "Ethernet Controller" in the Device Manager. This technician actually stated that by installing the Intel chipset, my ethernet controller should be set...but that didn't seem to work. I tried to get him back on the horn see if he had any other ideas, but their support staff is both within the US and international, takes 15 minutes to get through, and if you do get auto transferred outside the US they will not transfer to a specific technician due to it being an international call...awesome set-up they have going.  

Other than that, I really haven't been able to get much help from HP for the Ethernet/NIC problem...


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

If you have already tried the Realtek drivers, Probably the easiest solution would be to install a cheap 3Com PCI NIC. Something that WinXP will sure to have drivers for. This way the computer will have some way to get to the internet and maybe Windows update will have drivers for it.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

Thank you, that's what I'm thinking would be the easiest and would save me a lot of headaches. I certainly have no loyalty or connection to the Realtek NIC, this is simply what came with the machine.

After a very general eBay search, would this be adequate for what you're referring to? http://cgi.ebay.com/3Com-Fast-Ether...4QQihZ016QQcategoryZ51189QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Also, would I need to manually remove the current Realtek NIC to install this one or how would that work exactly?

What about an external USB NIC, would that work just that same and avoid having to go inside the actual box?


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

> After a very general eBay search, would this be adequate for what you're referring to? http://cgi.ebay.com/3Com-Fast-EtherL...QQcmdZViewItem


Exactly, Windows will identify this card and have drivers. 



> Also, would I need to manually remove the current Realtek NIC to install this one or how would that work exactly?


You shouldn't have to manually remove the drivers. Windows should pick up the 3Com card and install drivers automatically.



> What about an external USB NIC, would that work just that same and avoid having to go inside the actual box?


That may put you in the same boat as you really don't know if Windows has drivers for it.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

Thanks, Joe. I'm going to purchase this inexpensive item, install it and see how it goes. I'll keep you posted later in the week after I receive the item.

Oh, and actually what I was asking about in the previous post regarding the manual install...will I simply physically replace the current NIC (Realtek) with this new one or do I need to even worry about the Realtek one? 

I mean, does the new 3Com NIC go in the same spot physically inside the box that the Realtek NIC is currently? It may sound like a stupid question, I've just never physically installed a NIC interally so I just want to make sure I'm thinking this right...remove the old one from the box, pop in the new one replacing the old one inside the box, boot up the machine and let Windows detect the NIC. Does that sound about right?


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

Hold off before you buy that card!!!!


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

I just noticed that the motherboard that you have does not even come with a standard PCI slot. Let me do somemore digging.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

Ugh, just did...keep diggin if you could, I'll see if I can work it out with the seller.

Thanks.


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

You did try these drivers from this website?
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads...6&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false#1


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

Yep, worked with both versions of 663, the XP versions (the 1st one and 3rd one in that list of drivers from the top) and also downloaded the diagnostic tool from there in the "Others" section.


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

In the device manager, when you click on the LAN device, with the yellow exclamation mark, what does it tell you? That device drivers are not installed?


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

crazijoe said:


> In the device manager, when you click on the LAN device, with the yellow exclamation mark, what does it tell you? That device drivers are not installed?


Within the Device Manager, it's listed under "Other Devices". By clicking the "+" sign, I get one device called "Ethernet Controller" with a yellow ? and when I click on that it says it's not installed. I'm not at the machine, so I'm not entirely sure of the exact language, but that sounds about right. Maybe something along the lines of "This device is not installed properly." Basically, I was under the impression that the machine knows it's "plugged in" just can't operate it without the proper XP driver.

Also of interest, this only happened once I installed XP, I was able to get online when I was working with Vista for a day or so. Then I made recovery disks for the Vista and installed XP in the manner which I mentioned earlier and could no longer get a connection.


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

What you might want to do is try and install the driver but let it search the hard drive for the driver. There may be a chance that it will pick up the driver you had tried to install.
I'm leaving in about 5 minutes but will be back about 6am CST. Please post your results.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

Okay, I'll give that a try...what I've tried with most of these different drivers I've found is first, just install them straight from the CD that I burn them to.

If that didn't work, then I would go to Ethernet Controller, right click, and click update driver. I'd let it search the disk to update, but it would never find anything. I did not however choose to search the hard drive, so that might work.

I'll see what I can come up with and we'll catch up tomorrow.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

Yeah, still nothing...

To update the driver, it wouldn't even let me do a general search of the hard drive, I had to pick a specific folder...I picked the actual folder from the Realtek installed program (The Realtek Ethernet PCI is installed on my machine and found in the list of "Add/Remove Programs"), but that did not work, I chose from the CD, still nothing, I tried everything from the hard drive that I could except for just a general search of C:, again, still nothing.

When I do double-click on the "Ethernet Controller" in the Device Manager, it tells me the drivers have not been installed for this device. However, I've installed every driver I can find related to this apparent device...and still nothing. So yeah, we're at the same place we were yesterday...


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

When you re-install the driver, during the wizard, You should come across an option "What do you want the wizard to do?".
It should give you 2 choices. Choose "Install the software automatically (Recommended)". 
This should search the entire contents of any drive connected to the computer.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

crazijoe said:


> When you re-install the driver, during the wizard, You should come across an option "What do you want the wizard to do?".
> It should give you 2 choices. Choose "Install the software automatically (Recommended)".
> This should search the entire contents of any drive connected to the computer.


Yeah, I'll give this a try. I'm pretty sure I've tried this as well, but since I can't 100% be sure, I'll check it and let you know.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

Yeah, still not finding it.

After searching for about a second, it asks if I'd like to connect to the Internet so that it can search Windows Update for the appropriate driver.

Obviously, I cannot connect to the Internet, so if I say yes it says nothing was found and if I say no, it just takes me back to the beginning of the search where I've exhausted all options.

Unless again, the driver from the Realtek is not correct or my motherboard specs online are wrong and I do not have Realtek NIC.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

crazijoe said:


> When you re-install the driver, during the wizard, You should come across an option "What do you want the wizard to do?".
> It should give you 2 choices. Choose "Install the software automatically (Recommended)".
> This should search the entire contents of any drive connected to the computer.


Did I lose ya? You think there are any other solutions?


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

Sorry, 
First of the month and all of our salesforce doing reinstalls of the database kinda makes me have to do work every now and then. 

Well the only other option I can think of is to get an PCI-e network adapter or USB network adapter. I know thats probably not what you want to hear but since you have tried to reinstall the drivers with no luck and the small form factor of the PC is limiting, your optiions are very limited.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

crazijoe said:


> Sorry,
> First of the month and all of our salesforce doing reinstalls of the database kinda makes me have to do work every now and then.
> 
> Well the only other option I can think of is to get an PCI-e network adapter or USB network adapter. I know thats probably not what you want to hear but since you have tried to reinstall the drivers with no luck and the small form factor of the PC is limiting, your optiions are very limited.


No worries, sorry if I came off as impatient...I know fixing my issues is probably not one of your top priorities! :grin: 

I have no problem with getting either of those, the only concern I have is how will I know they will work with XP? I mean, is it possible, like you mentioned in an earlier post, that I may get one of these and it still doesn't detect?

I found this online, that specifically says it works with XP and has a CD with the software drivers... http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cable_details.cfm?sku=USBG-UE200&cats=112&catid=112

Would that work you think?


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

That looks like it should work fine. I just don't want to steer you into buy more than what you need or spending your money. Because that usually ends up in a closet full of stuff you never use. Been there, done that.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

crazijoe said:


> That looks like it should work fine. I just don't want to steer you into buy more than what you need or spending your money. Because that usually ends up in a closet full of stuff you never use. Been there, done that.


Yeah I understand that and appreciate it, I just can't come up with any other ideas...

The drivers just don't seem to work and as you mentioned due to the size of this machine, my options are limited. This appears to at least come with everything I need, so I'll try this...if it doesn't work, I guess I'm stuck with an OS the PC world is not compatible with yet to get online. Microsoft and their puppet strings...this would all have been avoided if I had the option up front to get XP...unfortunately, it doesn't work like that.

Thanks for your help, I hope this will work...


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

Let me know if it works.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

crazijoe said:


> Let me know if it works.


All set! Went to CompUSA and found the external USB Network Adapter they had. It ran for about $26. Came home, plugged in into the available USB port, installed the software CD and I was back online in minutes.

Doesn't really explain why the drivers wouldn't work for the internal card, but that doesn't really matter anymore. 

I'm online and all set. :4-cheers: 

Thanks for your help and patience.


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## sschult1 (May 22, 2007)

Residence said:


> All set! Went to CompUSA and found the external USB Network Adapter they had. It ran for about $26. Came home, plugged in into the available USB port, installed the software CD and I was back online in minutes.
> 
> Doesn't really explain why the drivers wouldn't work for the internal card, but that doesn't really matter anymore.
> 
> ...


Hi Residence, I have the same computer from HP than you with the same mini-itx Motherboard (Asus MOCA-AR) and of course I had the same problem with the internal network adaper (costs me a lot of time). The solution for this is that HP wrote the wrong specification about the onboard LAN on there website. It is not a Realtek chip, it is an Intel Network chip (you can see the chip on the board)!. If you want i can send you the link with the drivers.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

sschult1 said:


> Hi Residence, I have the same computer from HP than you with the same mini-itx Motherboard (Asus MOCA-AR) and of course I had the same problem with the internal network adaper (costs me a lot of time). The solution for this is that HP wrote the wrong specification about the onboard LAN on there website. It is not a Realtek chip, it is an Intel Network chip (you can see the chip on the board)!. If you want i can send you the link with the drivers.


Oh, that's unbelievable! All this time, trying to get the Realtek drivers...

That'd be great if you have the link...I'm up and running now, but of course if I could get the internal network adapter running that would be preferred. Thanks for reading and I'll check back for the link.

Thanks!


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## sschult1 (May 22, 2007)

Residence said:


> Oh, that's unbelievable! All this time, trying to get the Realtek drivers...
> 
> That'd be great if you have the link...I'm up and running now, but of course if I could get the internal network adapter running that would be preferred. Thanks for reading and I'll check back for the link.
> 
> Thanks!


Hi Residence, the network chip that is used for this board is an Intel "EP82562GT"! You can download the driver on the intel page http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...ID=998&DwnldID=6189&agr=Y&lang=eng&PrdMap=998
If you have more questions concerning the board, im (now very experienced with the board so dont hesitate to ask. There is also a fast video card from Sapphire available that fits into the Computer and is almost silent.


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## altamm (Jun 1, 2007)

Residence said:


> I'm up and running now,


Residence, I have the same model HP Slimline with Vista as you do, and have created a partition to install XP in a dual-boot configuration. I'm looking for drivers now - have picked up the E100 Lan driver recommended by sschult1, and think I have the video driver. I'm a little worried I might miss something and wonder if you could share the driver links you got from HP?

Thanks!


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

altamm said:


> Residence, I have the same model HP Slimline with Vista as you do, and have created a partition to install XP in a dual-boot configuration. I'm looking for drivers now - have picked up the E100 Lan driver recommended by sschult1, and think I have the video driver. I'm a little worried I might miss something and wonder if you could share the driver links you got from HP?
> 
> Thanks!


Let me do some digging. I'm a bit busy today at work, but this evening or tomorrow, I'll give you an update with all I downloaded. I'd tell you now, but because I tried so many different drivers to get the network adapter to work I'm having trouble recalling the correct ones.

I'll get back with you as soon as I can.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

Okay, this is from memory, see if this works...

1. http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-020683.htm

There are 3 downloads (Graphics Driver, Installation Utility and Storage Manager), download the drivers from the the 945GT Express Chipset row.

I'm not entirely sure how necessary or even pertinent the storage manager driver is, but I did download that and install it and I'm up and running, so...

2. See if this one works as well...

http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/SOUND-CARD/REALTEK/Realtek-ALC883-Audio-Driver-V51005296.shtml

This will be your audio/sound card driver, if this link is broken or gives you trouble, just google Realtek ALC883 audio driver download win xp or something similar and search for that driver.

3. Download and install the 2nd and 3rd options at this link under "Windows"

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads...L)+/RTL8139D(L)/RTL8100(L)/RTL8130/RTL8139B(L)


Here are the motherboard specs that came with my machine...
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&docname=c00783647

Given what was mentioned earlier about the incorrect listing, I guess it's entirely possible more of this was mislabeled as well, but I used this as my guide and downloaded everything applicable given the motherboard specs found here and after purchasing an external usb network adapter, I have had no issues...

Let me know how these go and then see where you're at. Again, there may be more, but I will have to dig a little deeper to remember which specific drivers worked for me and what didn't. 

Good luck, hopefully this will help!


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## altamm (Jun 1, 2007)

Residence said:


> Let me know how these go and then see where you're at.


I'm stuck at nearly square one... I boot with the XP setup disc and after setup loads files it displays a lists of partitions, but they all say "Unknown Disk <There is no disk in this drive>". Those are just the card reader slots; it doesn't recognize the Intel storage controller. So I boot again and when prompted, press F6 for "SCSI or RAID". This would allow manual install of the Intel storage manager's AHCI support, but XP can only do this from a floppy drive, which the HP s7700y doesn't have.

How did you get around this?

One thing... I'm installing XP Home Edition, following that I have an XP Professional Upgrade. But maybe if I had XP Pro to start with it would make a difference?

thanks,
Allan


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

altamm said:


> I'm stuck at nearly square one... I boot with the XP setup disc and after setup loads files it displays a lists of partitions, but they all say "Unknown Disk <There is no disk in this drive>". Those are just the card reader slots; it doesn't recognize the Intel storage controller. So I boot again and when prompted, press F6 for "SCSI or RAID". This would allow manual install of the Intel storage manager's AHCI support, but XP can only do this from a floppy drive, which the HP s7700y doesn't have.
> 
> How did you get around this?
> 
> ...


Haha, oh you are bringin up memories! The problem is the SATA drive that this newer model machine was manufactured with. Okay, I'm going to try to give you the process I followed. Unfortunately, I'm at work and will have to provide the steps blindly, not at my machine so this may not be easy to follow. If you try this process and it doesn't work or you are confused, let me know and I'll give you more detailed steps this evening when I can sit in front of my PC and get the exact steps down. A lot of how I did this was trial and error and reading forums like this for a week or so....anyway, what I did....is the following: (Please note, I'm not sure this is the "right" way, in terms of PC health, but I have not had any problems and XP Pro is installed on my machine and functioning normally, so take that for what it's worth)

First back up Vista or whatever you have currently. I think it takes 10 CDs or so...but just in the event there is any issues, you can always go back to how the machine was manufactured. If you aren't sure how to do this, contact HP, they'll tell you.

From there, when you boot up, press F10 or whatever key it is to "Enter Setup".

Once in Setup there is a setting for your SATA Controller Drive. You may have to tab over a few times to get to the main list of computer features, but when you enter that section read through everything until you see something that reads "SATA Controller Drive" or something of that nature.

When you press enter or whatever keystroke to change it's current setting you have 3 options, IDE, SATA, & (I believe) AHCI. That last option may be incorrect, but regardless, there are 3 options. You want to choose the "IDE" setting. Select that, and press whatever key to save and exit. This will exit setup and return to the boot screen where you will press whatever key to boot from the CD.

From there, you will follow your normal procedure to install XP from the CD. I don't know why this works, for the life of me. The machine was made with a SATA drive, it's almost like this setting tricks the machine into thinking it's not? I really don't know. I also don't know if this reduces the optimization of the actual SATA drive that this model PC comes with...but I was more concerned with having XP on machine than the drive optimization...so I guess it depends on what's most important.

I went out bought a external USB floppy drive, tried to install drivers, didn't work...I tried to put a floppy drive in, but the machine is so small normal floppy's won't fit, I tried installing other drivers from CD on the machine...nothing...but I read something about this setting option somewhere online and when I was on my last rope of how to do this, I tried it and it worked.

Good luck. As I said, if this doesn't work or you are unable to figure out how to do this from what I provided here, let me know and I can give you the exact steps this evening. It's really rather simple, I just don't have the machine in front of me right now.

- Residence


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## altamm (Jun 1, 2007)

Residence said:


> Haha, oh you are bringin up memories!
> - Residence


That's brilliant! (well maybe obvious to the experts, but not to me). And not only that - it's working! :grin:

First off, Vista still runs without the AHCI setting, which is comforting in case I don't get XP fully installed with AHCI support for awhile (I still want to be able to run Vista so I'm installing it on a 2nd partition for dual boot). 

I'm running XP setup now and noticed it loading drivers for IDE, then it was able to identify the disk partitions and let me select where I'm installing... so far so good!

Hopefully I'll be able to install the RealTek drivers and other files, including the AHCI support, that I stashed on the XP hard drive partition... I'll keep you posted.


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## altamm (Jun 1, 2007)

altamm said:


> I'll keep you posted.


Another obstacle... XP installed and restarted, but immediately the message "Error loading operating system" appears. There may be a problem with the boot loader, and I have info on how to fix it but it requires booting from a Vista disc, which of course I don't have since this is an OEM Vista machine. Theoretically at least XP should boot until the boot loader has been fixed, so something went wrong. I wasn't watching the screen during install... maybe I'll see something to do if I try it again.


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## Residence (Apr 30, 2007)

altamm said:


> Another obstacle... XP installed and restarted, but immediately the message "Error loading operating system" appears. There may be a problem with the boot loader, and I have info on how to fix it but it requires booting from a Vista disc, which of course I don't have since this is an OEM Vista machine. Theoretically at least XP should boot until the boot loader has been fixed, so something went wrong. I wasn't watching the screen during install... maybe I'll see something to do if I try it again.


Hmm, I'm not entirely sure...mine installed without a hitch, but i wasn't doing the dual-boot, so there may be an issue with that separate than how I did it. When I get home, I'll check if there were any other settings I changed that I may have left out earlier.

In the meantime, give it another shot and see if you notice anything during install.

I'm certainly not an expert, just someone who successfully got through the same problems you're having...I can't guarantee that this is the correct way, but if you have the same machine, i can't imagine it wouldn't work the same way. I'll update you later if I find anything more. But yeah, keep me posted.


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## Sir_Hendro (Aug 24, 2004)

It has been a while but i'm back just to leave this post.

I bought a HP computer a while ago (S7630) and also needed this LAN driver. You guys have helped me alot. Unlike that other guy i don't want to buy a seperate LAN device so i just kept searching for the driver and i finaly found it. 

The thing we need is:
*A driver for the Intel(R) PRO/100 VE*
You can download *PRO2KXP.exe* (11.5MB) for Intel's 945GT chipset.

Here is a link from one of my FTPs:
*PRO2KXP.exe*
11.5 MB

Enjoy! :wave:


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## Sir_Hendro (Aug 24, 2004)

//edit
For the other 2 things that don't work (PCI thing and the Realtek HD Sound Chip) you should get:

*- PCI_Install_5671_200706.zip
- Realtek_Windows_V51005296*

:smile:


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