I have a Dell D410 laptop running XP SP2 with built in LAN and Wireless network connections. It seem's that there is a problem with the built in lan connection. I have checked the obvious things and have found:

1] The connection is enabled
2] The Card is installed and 'apparently' working correctly.
3] Have tried various 'known' working ethernet cables
4] The connection appears to be normal and just says 'cable unplugged'
5] I have fully removed the card from the O/S and re-installed it.
6] I have upgraded the drivers to the latest version.
7] I have checked that the card is not disabled in the BIOS.

Now i'm kinda out of idea's

There seems to be no activity from the card (no light's at all) and the card will just say 'network cable unplugged' even with it connected, yet the system seems to think it is working perfectly and is enabled etc!

Any input welcome, but I suspect you will tell me what I already expect.

 

What is the cable plugged into? Is it plugged into a router?

My two PC's are plugged into an ethernet router/modem thingy, both connected with cat5 ethernet cable... I had the same problem saying that the "Cable is unplugged" when everything on the PC was fine - turned out the port on the router was dead... I changed the cable from port 2 to port 3 and it was fine. Now both ports 2 and 1 are dead and I am running on 3 and 4... Time for a new router methinks!

 

Only other way to test it is a straight laptop -> pc connection, but I reckon it's fucked m8. If it's under warranty I'm sure Dell will swop the board over

 

Yup, looks like that's what'll have to happen

 

Does it go through a router then? And if so did you test it by swapping to another port?

 

No and No

 

Fair enough