Help! Intel PRO/1000 MT

[wiggling]

I can't get my intel PRO/1000 MT port on my new X40 to function properly. I can connect to the local network but the connection is incredibly slow. When I ping the local server, I get 50-75% of the packets dropped (without a timeout error). It is very likely that the router is not negotiating correctly with the laptop (speed mismatch?). No luck after fiddling with the advanced features setting for the ethernet card.

The driver is 7.2.17.0 which came with the machine. Anyone have similar problems, and found a resolution. I plan to post comments on the new machine in the next day or so.

Wiggling

[wiggling]

Sorry that should be with a "request timed out" error for the ping attempts. Occasionally, 1 or 2 get through.

[jdhurst]

The driver for your NIC is in the DRIVERS folder (at least it should be). Assuming so, uninstall the NIC driver, then remove the NIC (use the Device Manager). Shut down the machine, then restart it. The OS (XP I expect) should find a new device, and it should find the driver in the DRIVERS folder (or wherever the setup placed the driver in System32). In any event, it should re-install itself. See if performance improves. That particular NIC is in my T41 and it performs very well. My version is 6.4.16.36 (although I think my T30 came out with same version as you in one incarnation).

[wiggling]

I think I've finally located the source of the error. The network I am on is a slow 10 Mbps network (slow for a gigabit chip). I updated the drivers for the 82541 GI controller in the Intel PRO/1000 MT card. This did not help.

What happens is that the port no longer has problems pinging the server and sending packets. However, it does have problems receving packets; almost all of them are tagged as errors. I believe this is a problem with old versions of the intel boot agent (but I am not sure which version is running on this machine). It appears that the latest boot agent for gigbabit, 1.2.19, fixes this problem.

However, I don't know whether I can install it or IBM needs to give us a BIOS update. This has been a frustrating two days though I did upgrade every driver on this machine.

[wiggling]

The problem is partially resolved. The router for the network I am on does not interact properly with intel's gigabit chips (this is intel's fault). Moving to a different router let me see the network but DNS failed to work. Finally fixed DNS by manually specifying the DNS server for the connection and checking that I can ping the server.

What an irritating 3 days. The only good news is that I upgraded all the drivers and the BIOS.