3com 3c905 NIC can't find drivers

[PRPhx]

Has anyone seen this happen?
OS: Vista ultimate, SP1
NIC: 3com 3c905c
Drivers: Win XP

I installed this card approx. 2 weeks ago. The XP drivers installed and worked perfectly. Then this past weekend, i installed a program called Audacity (A cassette to mp3 converter). After several minutes, my internet connect froze up. To the point I had to kill the power to the pc.

After re-booting Vista said it couldn't find the drivers for the NIC. Strange. I found them on my HD and pointed the hardware installation to use these files. Said it couldn't locate any drivers for the 3Com NIC.

Ok, so I disabled and uninstalled the card. Next, I uninstalled Audacity. Powered down the pc. After the second reboot, Vista found the drivers and re-installed them. The internet was back. Great!

Went through the above a couple of more times. I decided that perhaps Audacity might be causing a conflict. However, no events in any log indicate this.

So, after leaving Audacity uninstalled, and doing some surfing, the internet froze once more.

Fortunetly, Fry's Eletonics sells a NIC that does have Vista drivers.

Any suggestions? I'm thinking the NIC is bad. I bought it used 3 years ago or so, and it's worked very well up to now.

The new NIC (TrenNet or something close) works well, and listed Vista on the box as a supported OS. Plus it was really cheap.

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Maybe this will help with the 3c905..

http://www.xpvistasite.com/3c905_20535.htm

Lots of hits in Google as well...Common problem, I guess



To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[BadBigBen]

yep, go with the newer card, as the software does support Vista straight out of the box...

usually there are some slight incompatibilities that arise with hardware that where designed for a previous OS...



Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[PRPhx]

Turkbear,
Thanks for the link. I had already been there. Unfortunetly, 3Com doesn't list Vista as being one of the supported OS's. I did however, find a different 3com driver (don't remember the name of it), and it did work, for about 2 weeks. That's why I suspect the card more than the drivers.

BadBigBen,
Yes, I did end up going with another card. One that actually lists Vista as a supported OS. And it was the cheapest NIC at Fry's! ($9.99 + tax). Seems to be working well now.

 

[BadBigBen]

Glad you got it running...

NICs are so cheap these days, it doesn't pay to try to troubleshoot or figure out why one does not work correctly, etc....

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."