nForce 4 - on-board NIC stopped working

[Wombat]

So last night I installed FEAR, and it kept crashing. So I:

1) Installed the Catalyst 5.12s
2) Installed the latest nForce package for AMD from nVidia
3) upgraded my DFI LanParty from the 3/10 BIOS to the 6/23 BIOS

It took the last step to fix FEAR.

Anyway, now my nVidia network connection no longer works. It shows as connected, but it only sends a few hundred bytes out, and never receives any. I could ping myself, but nothing on my home subnet. I've had to hook up to the 2nd NIC port to get back online.

Does anybody know what's happening here?

Other pieces of information:
1) FEAR seems to have turned the Windows Firewall on (I normally have it off) and created an exception for itself. I have turned the Windows Firewall back off.

Much obliged.

[ZokesPro]

Did it stop working after the latest nForce package, or after the bios update? What if you downgrade the bios or un-install the nForce package?

What else have you tried?

Does the nForce package include NIC drivers?

[Claymonkey]

You MIGHT have to reinstall the nforce package since it might have installed drivers based on the older firmware and now it doesn't know what to do.

[Wombat]

I'll try rolling back the NIC, and then maybe re-installing the nForce package (I can't see a way to do just the NIC, or I'd try that first). I don't really want to re-do the whole package because it includes SATA, PATA, and everything-else drivers.

I think the NIC worked between steps 2 & 3, but I did a lot of rebooting/crashing last night so I can't be sure.

[MultimediaMan]

Avoid the Nvidia "Active Armor" option (BSODs lurk nearby if you do): not only does it suck, but the Miniport driver they use is barely stable.

[GT98]

Avoid the Nvidia "Active Armor" option (BSODs lurk nearby if you do): not only does it suck, but the Miniport driver they use is barely stable.

I ran into the same problems with that....what POS.

[Marshmallowman]

One thing that has occurred for me is that my integreated nvida adapter lost its MAC address at one point. The symptoms were like yours connected but no traffic.

Using the bios I just re entered the MAC address, its should bne printed near the nvidia network port.

[ZokesPro]

Did you get it working once more?

[cjolley]

I had something similar happen to me this weekend with an NForce 3 MB.
I had downloaded the driver package an burned it to CD before building the new PC.
Well, after I installed it no network.

After some investigating I re downloaded the package on another machine and burned another CD.
It installed and worked fine.
I guess the first one had some subtle bit errors in the package that allowed it to install, but borked the nic drivers.