Nic Card Question

Rezillo · Post by **Rezillo** » Thu Dec 14, 2000 4:53 pm

Hey everyone. I haven't been on in a while, but I wanted to say "Happy Holidays" before I asked this question. On to my question.....
I had a road runner tech come out today to install it. I asked the people at time warner if I should buy my own NIC card. They said no. So when the guy gets here today, he can't get it to boot fully after he installs it. I told him check IRQ's and change PCI slots. Still no luck, then he wouldn't listen to anything else I told him. He ends up giving up and leaving. SO, I went and bought my own NIC card from the store, its a Net Gear or something. Anyways, I installed it and I was having the same problems. But Eventually after unistalling it, and re-installing it, and fiddle-farting around i got it to say it's installed properly. But now, My boot time is at the very least DOUBLE what it was before. Is this normal? and if so why? and if not, then what the hell is the problem? it takes 2 full minutes to load. Verus my normal 50 seconds. Thanks, for reading. and if you don't know atleast have some happy holidays. feel free to just post happy holidays back too.
System specs:
800E PIII, ( I was running it at a gig, but i put it back hoping to cure the problem)
Asus CUSL2 MB
128mg PC133
15.5 gig Maxtor,
52x kenwood CD
Sound blaster Live! Platinum w/live drive
and thats it other than the new NIC card.
And its has a fresh copy of Windows 98 from last week when i formatted.

Thanks again all.

Hipnotic_Tranz · Post by **Hipnotic_Tranz** » Thu Dec 14, 2000 4:59 pm

Hey, rezillo! What's up?

Yeah, that's pretty normal, really. When I installed a NIC for my network, the boot time went from about 30 seconds (yes, 30 seconds!) to about 1:30. It's wierd. Basically, it's initializing the network and finding the computers on the network. Or so I'm told.

Ladies Man · Post by **Ladies Man** » Thu Dec 14, 2000 5:00 pm

hummmmmmmmmmmmm 2 mins is long
with win2k i had to rearrange my cards SEVERAL TIMES. For some reason if the scsi card was in one spot it took 5 mins to boot. So i moved it around then my usb irq was conflicting with nic yada yada yada. Anyway i'd keep moving all the card around alittle bit more. Start with the nic in there and slowly add more cards in. If you get a conflict then move the last card you put in to a different spot. It's all trial and error..... lots of error

With a nic card your boot time will slow down some because it's looking for the network.

Rezillo · Post by **Rezillo** » Thu Dec 14, 2000 5:09 pm

I figured it was searching for devices and computers on the network, but I just wanted to here it from someone else. I haven't actually clocked my boot time, since i put the card in but i know its Alot slower than my normal 48-50seconds.
Thanks again. I can always count on the close knit, and kick a$$ people at agn to help me out with my problems.
Happy Christmas, and Merry New Years,

Koo Koo Mouse · Post by **Koo Koo Mouse** » Thu Dec 14, 2000 7:32 pm

That does sould a bit long. Hmmmm... Maybe not..
For the heck of it I check out my boots times:
The old p3 450 booted in 1:45 (but hey I haven't weeded msconfig in a while or fomatted in a year and a half)

My AMD 600 booted in 48 sec. (it's free of clutter still)

Both comps have nics in them for the roadrunner sevice. The 450 has a nic the cable guy put in becuase the nic I had would not work (the cat5 side was bad, BNC side ok for I was using it for) But anyway boot times did not change from the switch.
The AMD runs a netgear I picked up the get the second comp hooked up for the rr service. Again boot times did not change with the card change or even no nic in the machine. (that I noticed anyhow)
Wish I could help more but thought I give some numbers anyhow.

And Welcome back REZ!

Solstice · Post by **Solstice** » Thu Dec 14, 2000 9:02 pm

That is somewhat common. If you use DHCP your computer must request an IP address and DNS servers. Check your network settings. If everything is set for "automatic" you should expect the boot process to take a little longer than normal. Just as an experiment try this: disable the NIC card in the device manager profile and see how long it takes Windows to boot. With it disabled it shouldn't attempt to resolve IP info. If it takes just as long to boot you might have a hardware issue on your hands.

RubberDuckie · Post by **RubberDuckie** » Fri Dec 15, 2000 3:36 pm

That is normal.
Especially if you have "Auto Optain IP"
The NIC is waiting for an IP to be assigned to it...then has a look on the network for computers around it.
You could speed the boot up a bit by "Assigning" the IP, but I bet your cable company will want "Auto Optain IP" checked so their DHCP can give you one.

Thats just the way life goes

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Fri Dec 15, 2000 8:13 pm

Boot time even slows down more if yet another NIC is added for a network besides cable. Even though I've more than doubled my cpu speed after upgrading, my boot up time hasn't changed one bit, still very slow.
As for TW having cable problems, the guy had no probs with my PC last summer but my parents tryed to have TW install Roadrunner and after they tryed 3 seperate times with all their "experts", they couldn't figure it out and gave up. To me, that's very strange because either of my (now) 3 PCs, one being an old laptop will work just fine when plugged directly into TWs cable modem without having Roadrunners software installed either. I can't imagine why their PC with a NIC and basic protocols wouldn't work for them. Roadrunner told them that there was a problem with their "Ma and Pa PC store brand" PC and that they'd need to have that shop fix it. They decided to go without cable and stick with their 56K modem instead.

Rezillo · Post by **Rezillo** » Fri Dec 15, 2000 10:49 pm

Well I had them come back out today and bring me a new cable modem. This one has USB capability, and you don't have to use the RJ-45, which is the first I have heard of. But I uninstalled the NIC card, and now I'm using USB, it seems to work great, and my boot time is back to normal. Thanks everyone for your help.

Reg Kmet · Post by **Reg Kmet** » Sat Dec 16, 2000 3:05 am

weird, when i installed my NIC, i really noticed no difference in boot times, but then my system is all IDE...

succubiss · Post by **succubiss** » Mon Dec 18, 2000 3:02 am

yes, with my brothers system, when i hooked him up to the network, i gave him a nic, and boot time did increase about 20 seconds.

whats cool though is Hibernate in win2k! his boot time is 15 seconds. mine is about 45 seconds, but thats because the raid setup takes 25 seconds to init.