A magical disappearing onboard NIC after BIOS update

Question

After searching and finding nothing (though I probably missed it) I find myself posting. I have been fighting with the Inspiron 5100's onboard NIC for 3 weeks now. When I ping any other computer I hear a system beep and the normal 'Now pinging 123.123.123.123 with 32 bytes of data' is replaced by 'Now pinging oy with 32 bytes of data' (but the 'o' is more like a degree sign and the 'y' has the two dots over it.) I updated everything but the bios it still failed to work properly but could still ping other computers. I then updated the bios and now the NIC 'cannot start'. I cannot uninstall it and reinstaling the drivers does nothing. suggestiongs anyone? -just some guy

bacillus · Answer

try disabling it in bios, rebooting twice then re-enable it, reboot twice & see if that helps the cannot start.

justsomeguy22 · Answer

Disabling-reenabling appears to have worked. I still have the wierd error when pinging and I am now unable to pull an IP address from the server (though static works fine... hmmm) but at least I have something to work with.

-just some guy

johnallg · Answer

Interesting - could you explain the multiple reboots?

bacillus · Answer

John, I've found with my laptop if I enable or disable the nic then rebooting, the changes only seem to take place after the second reboot.

Locked Topics – Laptops General

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