Network card won't work with RJ45

[nigelj]

I have a server running Novell 4.11 and it has a network card with both RJ45 and BNC connectors. The rest of the cabling is UTP. When a plug a RJ45 patch cable (either cross over or straight) into the server it won't work, but it does with the BNC thin ethernet that runs to a media converter (RJ45 to BNC). Could it be a software setting in on of the startup system files (autoexec etc...)that is teling the card not to use the RJ45 connector?<br>
<br>

 

[Combat]

What brand of NIC? I can just about guarantee you that the NIC does not auto detect the connection media. It is alomost certainly a commnad line switch.

 

[neilsonnn]

Another thing to look at is in autoexec.ncf on your sys volume. In the line where you load the NIC for example:<br>
<br>
load 3c90x slot=2 media=?? name=3com_1 net=802<br>
<br>
The media=?? statment is optional but you can try putting media=tp to force the issue. Just for your info, the other statement is media=bnc. But there also may be a configuration .exe that came with your NIC that can set it up for what you want. For example 3com has 3c??xcfg.exe or something like that or Kingston has Qstart.exe. Most newer NIC's auto-detect network media.

 

[nigelj]

Thanks for replying<br>
It is actually 3COM and these are the lines out of autoexec.ncf for the cards (I have 2 BTW - one for &quot;Lower&quot; site and one for &quot;Upper&quot; site)but there is no metion about media..????!?!?!?<br>
Where do I go from here?

 

[lewinskys]

Check for a BAD NIC card. This happened to me. SAME THING.<br>
But mine was a D-Link card.

 

[neilsonnn]

Sorry, I've been away.<br>
The media=bnc/tp statement goes in autoexec.ncf (type load install at system console, then edit ncf files, edit autoexec.ncf)<br>
On the line for the loading of the nic. I dont know if it really matters the order of commands. But I usually have something like: <br>
load 3c90x slot=? frame=ethernet_802.2 media=? name=NAME<br>
than next line is:<br>
bind ipx to NAME net=802

 

[Phage]

I would try running the appropriate 3com configuration .exe before writing the NIC off as bad (e.g. for the 3c905 it's 3c90xcfg.exe). If you don't have the disks or cd-rom you can get them from the 3-com web site.<br>
<br>
The configuration program will auto detect the media type, or you can manually set it to rj-45.

 

[KennyG]

Use the dos setup disk for the nic to set it to RJ-45