Installed new RAM, lost onboard LAN, Please help.

Ok so this is the deal, I had just installed some new RAM.. 8gb (4x 2gb) Coarsair Dominator 1066mhz replacing the 4gb (4x 1gb) Coarsair Dominator 800mhz that I had before.

In order to get the 8gb to work, or rather to stop the pc from randomly rebooting, I increased the mem and north bridge voltage.

So I boot into vista fine, system stable, but realise that the onboard LAN is not working correctly, the network connection shows that it is active, but has limited connectivity, trying to ping in or out seems dead, the lights on the hub and the network port both light up and sometimes flash. This was working fine before the RAM upgrade, same thing happens when I boot into xp.

The only way to get LAN back was to install a PCI NIC that I had kicking about, but only xp has a driver for it.

I checked out the 680i chipset layout and notice that the onboard LAN is connected to the south bridge, as I had thought, would adjusting the north bridge voltage have this effect?

The voltages set in the bios are 2.1v for RAM, high I know, but system fails to boot otherwise, anything less than 2.0v and system would not even fully post.
The north bridge is set to 1.20v with the rest being set to auto.

Do I need to be increaseing south bridge also?


Any suggestions woulld be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Delph

 

If I had to fire a random guess at this I'd say your overclock has somehow put the southbridge's sync frequency out, I'd really only be guessing but I've seen faulty printers shipped with out of sync connectors so who knows.

I'm assuming this is all installed on something that is going to recognised above 4gb?

 

System is not overclocked (at present).
Vista Ultimate 64bit (primary OS)
XP Pro 32bit (secondary OS) I am aware of the 4gb address limit with 32bit OS's.

I had wondered also if they maybe got out of sync, but thought that the clocks speeds have not been adjusted so should not be, also sound and pci slots and usb etc all work fine from the southbridge.

 

This sounds familiar for some reason... Oh yes! I had to RMA my motherboard!
WARNING: NOT FUN with ASUS!

If you remove your RAM does it work?
How about your second Ethernet card?
Do you see any lights on the Ethernet plugs?
Did you try uninstalling/re-install the drivers? Does your computer locks up in the process of doing this?

 

Not tried yet, was a bit of a pain to get it working heh. Will try so now.. (looks at clock, ok, maybe tomorrow evening).

EDIT: Inserted the old RAM and put bios back at previous voltages, still no traffic via either port yet :|

Both acting the same.

Yes on both onboard nics, and on the router.

Will find out, odd how id need to reinstall driver for both xp AND vista. Which makes me think it be something more sinister.

 

Check In Bios

I had an XFX 650i ultra mobo, and from time to time the bios would change my configs. sometimes just goiling in to the bios and changing the values would rectify it.. but on other occasions, i would have to flash my bios.

i suggest u to check if the onboard lan is enabled

 

Both are enabled in bios, as I say, both get detected in windows just with limited connectivity.

 

Ok further to this, both ports detect when I have a cable plugged in or not with "connected at 100mbps" and "no network cable connected" messages.
The router is also able to see and read the mac codes of both the onboard ports.

I seem to recall these nvidia network cards also have some nvidia hardware firewall technology, however I am sure thats a software/driver setup/install not in the bios, please correct me if im wrong.

 

Got a Ubuntu/Knoppix livecd handy to try?

 

Have you tried setting the IPs in the NICs static and seeing if you can get traffic to anything else on your network?

 

Probably it's the first thing you tried... but it's worth mentioning. Did you try and change your Ethernet cable?

Worst come to worst you can call ASUS tech support, on their flagship product (motherboard) they charge you long distance! How nice of them!
But for their crappy laptops, and LCD's it's free with a nice 1-800 number

 

I don't know if it's the same problem I've encountered with both my nVidia-based mobos, but once in a while the nVidia-based ethernet seems to go bonkers. What usually works for me in this situation is to completely pull the power from the board (i.e. pull the plug) and wait for about 30 minutes. Might work for you too.

 

I do, I shall give it a try even though I get same results in XP and Vista.

EDIT: Knoppix did not like to boot :/

Yes, I always use static on the pc, as I have my router firewall setup to forward to it.

3 cables and both onboard ports, before and after the hub in my room, which then runs off to connect to the router. Using the same cables, hub and router with a pci network card ive installed all works fine.

How nice of them indeed, bah. Fortunately I has desk work phone that I can utilize . Im reluctent to send the board back for RMA though as I know its a stable board for me, and I really cba to uninstall all the watercooling etc to send the board off. Much more inclined to use a pci slot up with a network card than removing the mobo which is my current solution.

Hmm, left turned off over night, but not off at the wall, will give it a try, cant hurt to

Edit: Made no difference


Cheers all, I shall try these suggestions when I return home this evening and post my findings.

Many Thanks.
Delph


Edit: I conclude there fried, so pci slot network card it is.