simply stupid or stupidly simple?

[sunster]

Hi all,

okay, here's my issue and I promise I have tried to find out how to do it myself.

It's really simple. I have a livebox which is used for my internet connection. I have a PC using XP, two Macs, a PC using Ubuntu and an XBOX360 (it's a big family I have!).

The Macs and the PC's use wireless connectivity to the livebox, the xbox an ethernet cable connected directly.

Now, I've bought a pair of comtrend powerline ethernet adaptors (Ethernet through the wired mains) and they worked out of the box. One plug is connected via an ethernet cable to the livebox and the other plug connects to a computer via an ethernet cable. (The reason I'm doing this is to speed up connection speeds as wireless has to go through several heavy walls to get downstairs). All is good apart...

Apart from the XP PC - which happens to be the one that I need the wired ethernet to work with! All other computers immediately recognise the connection.

I know I'm doing something stupid - just don't know what it is yet.

So, on network connections I have, under the title LAN or high speed internet:

1394 Connection (connected) and Wireless Network Connection (connected)

If i disable the wireless connection the 1394 connection is still connected. If I double click for connection status I can see that the staus is connected, duration is five hours (give or take), speed is 400.00 MBS BUT acitivity is showing 0 packets sent or received.

If I click on properties I can see the drivers are installed, status says it's working properly.

If I click on support I can see that there is NO information filled in for Address type, IP address, Subnet Mask and default gateway.

If I try to repair I get: 'Windows could not finish repairing... TCP/IP is not enabled for this connection. Cannot proceed'.

So I feel as if therein lies the issue but I'm just not knowledgeable enough to know what to do!

Can anyone help?

Thanks,

Sunster

Oh, should mention it's a dell xps M170. It's a few years old, but I know at some point I had the ethernet connection working, but for three years I've not touched that part as it's always been wirelessly networked.

 

[hikaricloud]

First off, the 1394 connection is the firewire...you installed an ethernet card, correct? The firewire will have nothing to do with your internet connection.

So when you turned it on, did you see anything about installing devices on boot? It's possible that either you need to install the driver that came with the card, or that it's not seated properly. I would check both.

 

[sunster]

ahh, okay, that helped.

If I go to system properties - hardware - device manager, under other devices I have a question mark followed by a question mark for both ethernet controller and PCI modem.

I've tried doing an automatic search for drivers, but it just says refer to start-up discs... which I can't get my hands on right now.

 

[Hefemeister]

here are you network drivers for your computer.
Drivers & Downloads

It should be one of the first 3 broadcom ones.

 

[sunster]

Hikari and Hefe - thank you so much guys. Downloaded the driver and.. it works!

I think I looked at the 1394, thought yup that's in the LAN section, that must be the ethernet. Duh!

Cheers, I owe you beer.

Sunster