Un-freaking believable, my 2nd ethernet card has been fried in the last 2 months

I've had this happen before, both having modems fried, cable modems fried, and ethernet card fried.

Hope it's not that again.

You can do a few things; it may be a software issue. If it is, then do two things:

Start>>>>My Network Places>>>View network connections (on the left side)

Look and see if there is a red X over the Local Area Connection. If so:

right click>>>disable

then wait 5 seconds and double click it again. If there is no red X then it should work fine.


If that's not the case and it doesn't recognize the software for the network card, get the ethernet card software and try this:

Start>>>Control Panel>>>Printers and Other HArdware>>>Add Hardware (on the left side of the screen)

Insert the CD; chances are it won't recognize the stuff you need from the CD, so don't worry about that for the moment.

So Add Hardware>>>hit next>>>let is search>>>select 'Yes, I already have connected my hardware'

if this is indeed the issue, then you're in luck:

you have a choice of all the different hardware; if the ethernet card is 'broken', you will see a yellow question mark on the left side of the text; it should still recognize the ehternet card as microsoft or siemens or Belkin or whatever brand.

It will tryo to fix itself from what's on the CD, but might not find what it needs (liek what happened with mine), so you should have an option to browse for the software you need int eh CD. It should be easy to find which file corresponds to your computer.

Good luck fixing it and if it's fried, well then you just need a new card.

 

Yes, just look for surge protector with a RJ45 jack, they're more common on UPS's, which has built-in surge protector.

What is your ethernet cable connected to.. a router.. a modem.. a shared ethernet jack (in an apartment or dorm)?

Did they install a new motherboard or ethernet card?

 

Hmm, that's interesting -- is the NIC onboard (built onto the motherboard), or is it a separate card? I'm going to guess that it's onboard, since you said they brought a new mobo.

It's a silly thought, but I wonder if Dell motherboards / onboard NICs have a low tolerance for surges or something like that? The reason I wonder is that I had the EXACT same thing happen to a laptop at work. The thing is, that's the only NIC that went out on the whole campus. 300+ PCs and that's the only one . . . PLUS, it went through the phone (Cisco phones -- connect wall jack ethernet to phone, computer to phone), and the phone was fine, but the NIC was dead. It happened at the same time as a big storm last year, so I assume that the lightning had something to do with it, although it could've been completely unrelated.

Just an interesting coincidence . . .

 

Not sure if there will be any conflict issues, but you can always buy a PCI NIC card for like 9 bucks off pricewatch.com and see if you get better results.

 

Just disable the old one.

 

Directron sells a DLink card for $5 that I really like:
http://www.directron.com/dfe530tx.html

Axion also sells a $5 card -- a Zonet
http://axiontech.com/prdt.php?item=8370

They're both really good, and I think they use the same chipset (making them basically the same card), but I could be wrong. I've got a few of both, and they're both great. The only tool you should need is a phillips-head. Sometimes (VERY rarely), you'd need a flathead or even a Torx, but 99/100, it's just the phillips.