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

@jason629 I know, I don't think this will help for a moment, but it's all Dell will do.

The Dell European Product manager for Vostros told my manager that there is a known hardware fault with a particular batch of motherboards. We are to call Dell with each individual service tag of each machine and they will send an engineer to replace each motherboard. We have 240 of these machines. This is a home user level of support for a business level of machine. It effectivley means I'll be doing our roll out twice. Thanks Dell. Next time, HP.

@Booce, I hear you, but another on this forum has had Dell replace the MB and the new board had the same issue.

@Booce, I hear you, but another on this forum has had Dell replace the MB and the new board had the same issue.

Might have replaced the faulty board with another from the same batch - I thought as much when I read the post.

Could this all link back to the Cougar Point chipset problem that Dell had with these motherboards at the start of 2011 ?  Anyone know if remanufactured motherboards were fed back in to the supply chain after having the chipset replaced ?

All,

Please stop replacing parts. We are still investigating the root cause. Once we find it, we will then know the process to fix it. When I know more, I will post on this thread.

Ok, Chris M  I'm not going to do anything yet.  

@Chris M Why is the product manager for Vostros telling us to replace motherboards and you are telling us not to? Could we have a unified approach to this problem please? Perhaps you could go and speak with the Vostro Product manager and let them know they have a problem with one of their product line and that a motherboard swap out is not appropriate?

I can tell you is after eating a large number of hours on this issue, we put in new NICs and disabled the onboard NICs and the machines are working fine.

So don't waste time reimaging, or reinstalling the OS, this issue is a hardware issue.  Unplugging the power, holding the power button in for 10 seconds works some of the time, but not always. 

Also there is alot more correspondence on this issue than is listed here, in my email thread there are close to 50 posts.

@Andre S Yeah, if they can't find an answer on here, that is what im going to do.  

@ Chris M It's a real shame if the easier answer is to fix this ourselves by replacing the NICs.  I hope you find a solution.  I'll tell you from experience.  Being that we have 4 of these pc's with the issue... If this comes down to having to call dell to get the to replace the Motherboards, it will be easier to by a NIC and install.  

Calling Dell to replace the MB,  Well, the phone call itself will take an hour.  We always have to go through their crazy trouble shooting steps before they will do any thing, then you have to wait for a Dell tech to come out and replace.  We are looking at about a week turn around time in this case for just one PC to be fixed.   Then we will be looking at a month to fix 4 pc's.  

So yeah, the better solution is buy a NIC and install/ disable onboard motherboard.  Done and fixed in like an hour.      

Like I said before, that's a real shame, if it comes down to that.

@ Chris M I'm sorry, my manager neglected to get the name of the manager in question. They said they were the European product manager of the Vostro line. Hope that helps.

Booce,

Did that manager give you their name or email? If yes, can you private message me with that data?

Yep had same issue, mine was related to bad NIC component out of spec, affected by temperature. Machine would behave once it was up for a few hours, with heat on up to normal room temp, or if machine was left on. If the machine was shut down, particularly over the weekend with the temp set back to 55 degrees, the machine would not connect to the network for a couple hours. Dell replaced motherboard, no problem since. I have another 460 odd intermittent network issue, machine states it is disconnected from the network, but if you click on drive ( red) it connects, not sure about this machine, I need to double check if any power saving features are enable, quick look, they seem to be OK. All power saving disabled on the first machine, tried CMOS battery pull, bios was the newest, I tried a few different NIC driver ( barebone, no management software)

Just to help as a temporary measure - for my Vostro 460 when it developed the "vanishing NIC" problem, I did find that after leaving the system on for about 30-60 minutes and then rebooting after that period of time, the NIC would be detected and working again.  So for those offices with 460's in a pinch, try booting your affected 460's up earlier in the day if possible for a "warm up" time to see if a reboot after that will get it working again.  There could be a cold solder joint or component that is temperature sensitive, and only after being electrically powered for a while that it works again like normal.

All,

As per the Update received please call Dell Technical Support and an appropriate measure would be taken.

The fix is out which is on a case to case basis, hence i would request all who face this issue to call Tech support for your region.

The Engineering team has forwarded the details to the Technical team and the TS process for this issue should go smooth.

FYI:  I was not provided with a Fix, please reach out to the Dell Tech Support for further details.

Call Dell Technical Support?  I'd rather just buy a new NIC and take it off your next bill.

Thanks for looking into it anyway.