Computer tech help needed!!

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Yesterday S’s computer lost its connection to our home network and he can’t connect to the internet (horrors!). Before I go and shell out the big bucks for a house call to get S’s computer working again, I thought I’d ask the techies here if they had any suggestions.</p>

<p>We have a wired ethernet network at home with 3 computers sharing a DSL connection through a router. S’s computer, which was working fine in the morning before school, now shows the “Network Cable is Unplugged” message in the lower right of the screen. The router light for his connection does not light up. Here is everything I have already tried:</p>

<ul>
<li>Unplugged and replugged the ethernet cables from his computer to the ethernet outlet</li>
<li>Unplugged and replugged the cables from the router to the outlet</li>
<li>Replaced said cables with new ones</li>
<li>Plugged his computer into 3 different router ports</li>
<li>Rebooted the router</li>
<li>Power cycled the DSL modem</li>
<li>Rebooted all the networked computers</li>
<li>Opened computer, removed and reseated the ethernet card</li>
<li>Replaced the ethernet card with a brand new one</li>
<li>Replaced the system battery (after getting a ‘battery low’ warning when the computer restarted after I reseated the network card)</li>
<li>Plugged S’s computer into the ethernet outlet in a different room (to see if the problem was with his outlet) - it still showed Network Cable Unplugged</li>
</ul>

<p>I’m convinced the problem is within his computer, since it won’t connect in any of the router ports or any of the other ethernet outlets in the house. But replacing the ethernet card didn’t make any difference and neither did replacing the patch cables. What else could it be?</p>

<p>Thanks to anyone who can suggest a solution :)</p>

2

<p>Have you tried a “System Restore” to a date prior to the problem? That has worked for me when I have gotten that message.</p>

3

<p>^^ Good suggestion - I’ll try that when I get home.</p>

4

<p>Wow- you’ve covered all the basics…try calling your ISP, they will frequently help you a bit :)</p>

5

<p>If you plugged your son’s computer into another port with a known good cable and still can’t connect, try the following:</p>

<p>Go to Control Panel and click on System. Click on Hardware and select Device Manager. A list of your computer’s devices will be listed. Find your Network Adaptor on the list and right click on it. Select “deinstall” (I’m presuming you are running Windows XP). When the device is deleted, turn off your computer and re-start it. You will see messages at the lower right of your screen telling you that your network drivers are being re-installed. After the drivers are re-installed, your computer will re-start.</p>

<p>Hopefully only a software driver became corrupted…</p>

6

<p>Thanks, everyone. Fortunately, I solved the mystery tonight. It was a bad cable after all! Two bad cables, actually – the new one that I tried was bad, too, believe it or not. I tried swapping it out with another old cable that I knew was good and it worked! Who’d have thought that a new cable would be defective?</p>

7

<p>Cables are sometimes defective. It happens, especially if people are hard on them.</p>

<p>But always start at the simplest answers first. :)</p>

8

<p>My son was known as the computer guru at his elementary school. He confessed to me that 90% of the time, they just had loose connections.</p>