Vostro 460 Network card not found Code 31 need to reboot 3 to 4 times

Dell engineer has visited and swapped the motherboard. Fingers crossed it's not another one from the same batch!

@ Telson Alva Thanks man, you've just wasted another 30 minutes of my time. Just phoned Dell Tech support and guess what the new fix is? Yup, replace the motherboard.

Spoke to the Dell supervisor (an Asian lady by the name of Jennifer) who said that this is the fix. She can replace as many of the 240 motherboards I've already rolled out if I'd like. I'd not like. It takes 5 mins to throw in a new network card, it's got to be at least a half hour to fit a new motherboard. I can't take 30 minute plus chunks out of every one of my users working day. If I don't get sacked for choosing Dell and this enormous problem, trust me, the next batch of machines I buy will be HP.

I can understand everyone's frustration with this issue, but don't take it out on Telson.  He's not even a Dell employee, but he's just someone trying to help us out here.  As they say, don't shoot the messenger.

Judging from Dell's response, it sounds like their motherboard supplier may be at fault here so they might have no option other than swapping the affected motherboards out to send back to the supplier to get credited for replacement boards.  I'm just guessing here of course, but that seems to make sense.  Dell likely orders these from their MB supplier which delivers a batch.  The supplier has an arrangement to supply replacement MB's if needed for any defective ones.

The supplier isn't going to send Dell free ethernet cards as they probably don't even make them, and Dell likely doesn't want to eat the cost of the ethernet cards if it's a production problem on their supplier's part.  I don't know if this is all true, but that's what I'm guessing here.  It sounds like there isn't a fast and easy fix unfortunately if they are insisting on the MB swapouts still.

I can understand everyone's frustration with this issue, but don't take it out on Telson.  He's not even a Dell employee, but he's just someone trying to help us out here.  As they say, don't shoot the messenger. Judging from Dell's response, it sounds like their motherboard supplier may be at fault here so they might have no option other than swapping the affected motherboards out to send back to the supplier to get credited for replacement boards.  I'm just guessing here of course, but that seems to make sense.  Dell likely orders these from their MB supplier which delivers a batch.  The supplier has an arrangement to supply replacement MB's if needed for any defective ones. The supplier isn't going to send Dell free ethernet cards as they probably don't even make them, and Dell likely doesn't want to eat the cost of the ethernet cards if it's a production problem on their supplier's part.  I don't know if this is all true, but that's what I'm guessing here.  It sounds like there isn't a fast and easy fix unfortunately if they are insisting on the MB swapouts still.

Thank you for understanding the situation....Dell doesn't manufacture any parts.....Its only Dell branded..

We had 2 mother boards replaced by dell tech on the vostro 460's.  one of them is working fine with no complaints.  The other one no longer unable to recognize the nic adapter but still experiences network connectivity issues.  Would get limited or no  connectivity intermittently.  We just went ahead and purchased a PCI-E intel NIC adapter to use and no reported issues the rest of the afternoon.  Cost us $40 bucks for the card.

Has this defect been resolved?  I have been holding back on ordering these units for my company for a several weeks.  Could a Dell liason confirm that new units won't be affected?  I get a little concerned when I hear about motherboard defects.

unplug power cord seems to be a work around for the no connection nic problem.

DELL, I am waiting for a permanent fix.

Thanks TA and Dell

i have 100 vostro 460 network problem on school , we bought the pc's two month ago and the problem started 1 month ago , i updated the BIOS of all pc but on some pc's the problem came back , any advice since chris said don't change any part nd as i have read on this post and the only way to solve the problem 100% is to change the motherboad , so any kind of help would be appreciaited .. thanks in advance !

sorry for the double post!  Please forgive my noobness today - not enough sleep.

Is this a long term solution?  My school purchased 80 of the Vostro 460 CPUs and at least 30 of them have this problem.  We went thru the many steps mentioned here.  Could not find Network card, checked drivers, updated firmware and finally found the solution to be unplugging the unit and waiting 10 minutes before turning it on again. This was the only way to solve the problem of the internal broadcom network card disappearing.

So my question remains.  Does the NVRAM clear solve the problem permanently?  Or will I be doing this for 30 units over and over again?  If it is not a permanent solution, I would rather RMA them now while they are under warranty.

Can anyone tell me if the problem reappears after clearing NVRAM?

Thanks,

Steve

Is this a long term solution?  My school purchased 80 of the Vostro 460 CPUs and at least 30 of them have this problem.  We went thru the many steps mentioned here.  Could not find Network card, checked drivers, updated firmware and finally found the solution to be unplugging the unit and waiting 10 minutes before turning it on again. This was the only way to solve the problem of the internal broadcom network card disappearing.

So my question remains.  Does the NVRAM clear solve the problem permanently?  Or will I be doing this for 30 units over and over again?  If it is not a permanent solution, I would rather RMA them now while they are under warranty.

Can anyone tell me if the problem reappears after clearing NVRAM?

Thanks,

Steve

It looks like a motherboard swap out is the only solution so far that I have seen.  Some of the integrated NIC's must have some flaw (cold solder joint, failing component) so there's no easy fix than to to replace the entire board as it's an integrated component.  Only one of three Vostro 460's that I have experienced the problem, but after the MB swap it's been running flawlessly.  My two other units never had a problem.

The other answer is to purchase PCI-e network cards to add into the systems if the procedure to get a motherboard swap-out is undesirable.  Dell unfortunately won't cover the cost of this option.  You could always try talking with a Dell Manager to see if they might though.

Mb replace on site and seems to be working. Only time will tell.

Anyone got a warranty extension? I am planning to ask for one.

Thanks for all the helpful info about V460.

I too am facing the same issue. Rebooting the computer few times might get you lucky. I also found plugging the computer out entirely and waiting till all residual power on the computer to die out and restarting helps.

In my opinion there are couple of issues with Vostro 460.

1. Everything is built into the motherboard, video card, sound card and Ethernet card. This makes it very difficult to isolate the issue and replace only the faulty component.

2. It seems like Vostro 460 cannot handle Windows power saving feature all that well. My Vostro 460 is just 9 months old and have got the motherboard replaced already as the computer did not come back on after going to sleep mode one day. Tech support asked me to remove the power cable and wait for power on the computer to discharge but did not work.

Coming back to the subject of this discussion, I noticed the computer looses the visibility of the network card when it comes back from sleep.

I have now changed the power management setting on Windows to never put the computer to sleep. Cannot save power when hardware does not support it!

Sam.