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    Guys, I'm in deep S and need help

    Discussion in 'Networking and Wireless' started by Danja, Jun 30, 2008.

  1. Danja

    Danja Notebook Evangelist

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    Hi,

    This is desktop related but I'm desperate for answers. Last week, I tried to fix my dad's problem of having his network card not wake up right away after his desktop came out of hibernation. I ran out of solutions and tried to install the latest ethernet driver from hp's web site. I installed it and the network icon said it had little or no connectivity and I couldn't connect to the internet. I then rolled back the driver, but that didn't fix it. I performed 3 system restores, none of which helped.

    I contacted hp but the computer only had 1 year warranty so I was relegated to the online chat which didn't help at all. I then contacted nVidia who sent me the latest driver pack which is compatible with the computer, but when installing their drivers it asked me to reboot the computer. When I rebooted, it said that it detected another windows installer running and that I needed to close it before installing the drivers. I minimized the nVidia installer only to find that there were no other active processes, but when I went back to the installer it reset itself to the original menu. This cycle continued for 3 attempts and nVidia couldn't tell me what's wrong.

    I went to the network adapter properties and it has an ip address but no default gateway or DNS servers. I have no idea what to do about it anymore. The next step is to buy an external hard drive for $150 and hope that I've backed up all data before doing a full hp system restore. I really hope somebody here can suggest another option because I really don't want to risk losing any of my dad's files. If anybody has an idea of what I can do, please help.
     
    Danja, Jun 30, 2008
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  2. trwrt

    trwrt Notebook Consultant

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    Have you tried using the device manager to uninstall the driver altogether, then using the 'install driver' button to pick out exactly which .sys file you want (probably the one from nVidia)?
     
    trwrt, Jun 30, 2008
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  3. Purehazard

    Purehazard Notebook Evangelist

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    Off the top of my head, just buy a new NIC for $10 or less. While it's probably a simple software issue that was overlooked, a new NIC would be quick.
     
    Purehazard, Jun 30, 2008
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  4. Danja

    Danja Notebook Evangelist

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    After a week and a half of this problem, I fixed it. Somehow when I installed the driver for the first time (right before it stopped working), it must have booted into safe mode on restart. I'm not sure why your post made me think to check for that but I did, and when I made it boot normally the connection was established. Thank you for the inspiration :D
     
    Danja, Jun 30, 2008
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