computer components & hardware - GA-7VAX and onboard NIC failure

Yes, I had the NIC on a VAXP-A fail after about 2 weeks. I didn't dream it
was the mainboard, and spent all day looking at cables, software, drivers
etc. It's a lot of hassle to swap a mainboard out just for something that is
easily cured with a PCI NIC instead. I've also had network cards just fail -
even expensive ones. In my experience the cheap ones are better than
expensive ones. (If in the UK, see redstore.com. They have 10/100 cards for
under GBP3). No further problems as yet. The NIC took my last free opening
in the back of the case - even though I only have one PCI card, the VAXP-A
has firewire, USB, sound and other things on brackets ...

Don't know if it is fixable, but it is annoying. Even to swap out a
motherboard with all those connections takes time.

Worse still, I was daft enough to set up Windows again ... its XP. The
VAXP-A was a replacement for something else that failed - it was the hdd,
and I thought it was the mainboard! Then XP told me I'd activated too many
times and insisted I ring the evil empire ... they have specially trained
staff to deal with irate customers you know. They need to!

"Shanon" wrote in message
...
Hey,

I bought a GA-7VX in March and was using the onboard NIC and sound with
no problems for a few months. Then, one day in June, while just surfing
around the net, I found that the NIC was no longer functioning. Thinking
that the problem was just temporary, and confined to the OS I was using,
linux, I rebooted and checked out the bios. The bios showed the NIC as
being enabled. So I boot to Windows 2000 to see if it would have a
problem. It found it, then lost it, then found it again, then lost it for
good. So I checked the bios again, this time the NIC was not available. So
there was no way to disable then enable again. I then switched to the
second bios in hopes that by some miracle it would show up. No go. I also
tried the obvious of checking the cable. I made sure it was in right, then
replaced it in case it was a dud cable. Still nothing. So I put in a PCI
NIC and that works fine, although sometimes Windows doesn't like it, and
when I check in the control panel, it says that the device failed to
start. I tried to see if I could exchange it where I bought it from, but
they say only within 30 days and that they will fix it.

So, has anyone else had a problem like this? Is it fixable? Should I not
worry about it? Is this indicative of a bigger problem?? The rest of the
board seems fine.

Thanks! and sorry for being so wordy!

Shanon