Ethernet Drivers

Pulse

<div class="IPBDescription">Need some help here</div> Ok, here's the deal, I want DSL, I'm sick and tired of having an average ping of 1000, getting disconnected every hour, and being prohibited from downloading large files. I asked my ISP about it and they told me they could get it for me in a few days, a few days later i asked and they told me to wait a few days, this went on for 3 weeks, at the end of which they told me they were out of stock and that I would have to wait a few months, this was last November, two weeks ago they told me they could install it as soon as I was ready, the problem was that I wasn't ready, I was in November but now I have lost my Windows CD, my old Ethernet card which was donated to me by a friend (albiet without drivers, more on this later) goes in an ISA slot, so does my sound card, and I only have one ISA slot. Big deal, I thought, buy another sound card and the problems will all go away, the old one sucked anyway, I put in the old ethernet card to test it, just in case, it was detected but it needed drivers, how could I have forgotten that? *smacks forehead* Windows used its patented "**** your registry up <i>before copying any files</i>" technology to really **** me off, but that doesn't matter anyway. Since I don't have the original drivers for the card and my Windows CD is gone I was screwed, I bought a new Ethernet/Network Interface card for $25 from radio shack in hopes that it could let me bypass any requirements for a Windows CD, but alas, after installing the drivers it told me that I needed the Windows CD for <i>something</i>, it didn't say <i>what</i> it needed it for, only that it was required to complete the installation of the card. On top of that, the old card seems to be better than the new one, I want to be sure I didn't waste my money on the card, but the end of the 15 day warranty is approaching fast, and as if that werent enough, if I don't get the DSL installed very soon I'm going to have to wait <i>another</i> six months for uber fast internet. Am I going to have to spend $200 bucks on a new Windows CD? What files do I need and can I download them from Microsoft's site? I need some help with this and I need it <b>fast</b>.

Jojoshua

Best I can tell you is to look on your old card for a PIN # or some kind of # and then search for drivers on the internet if you know what it is. Then DL from a friends or something onto floppy and try that.

Pulse

I guess the topic is somewhat misleading, I don't need drivers, the problem has a lot to do with them though, what I need is the file(s) that (supposedly) every Ethernet/Network Interface card needs in order to be installed on Windows apart from drivers.

Pulse

Jobabob, read my F*king post! I <i>did</i> get a new NIC for 25$ (canadian), and it did not help at all. I also might add that I have Windows 98 as it is just plain better than XP (less exploits + DOS support, and XP doesn't add anything major).

Reven

with my experiences with windows 98 when ever you install a network card(for the first time) it needs to install the network neighbouhood components. in all the cases i've seen you do need the 98 cd, the only thing i can sugest is begging a friend to borrow his cd for these files. or if you have had a network card install b4 you can try pointing toward the windows/system, and the windows dir. some of the files you need are there.

if you do get a win 98 cd i strongly recomment copying the content of the win98 dir to you HDD, thats everything you would need for the future.
you can even install windows fron the win98 dir on you HDD and you will never need your windows 98 cd again(unless you need to format).

thats about it, if you need any more help post back and we can see what we can do.

edit* i got alittle somthing wrong oops

Pulse

Maybe MS has the updated version of it's network components on its site, I'll go check, if it doesn't, can somebody with Win98 host or email me the files? Most of my friends either warezed it, don't have a computer, or have XP.
[edit] Its not there [/edit]

Reven

i dont know what files it askes for but you maybe able to search on google for them when it askes for them.

Pulse

It just tells me to put in the Win98 disc, doesn't tell me anything more than that.

Pulse

w00t! I'm actually getting somewhere now! After I wait a while it tells me what file its looking for, thanks!

Talesin

If you have a friend with the disc, borrow it for five minutes. Copy all the .CAB files off the disc into a directory on your drive. Any time it asks for the Windows CD after that, just point it at the CABfile directory. That's what I do on all my machines, and the ones I build for friends... saves on hassles.

And I'd recommend going PCI for the NIC... you know which models either/both of the cards are? There are only maybe two or three ISA cards I'd recommend to anyone, <i>period</i>, much less for NICs. They tend to be more a PITA than they're worth, setting them up and getting all the IRQs and memory addressing to work together nicely.

In addition, you never mentioned what VERSION of Windows it is. Could be handy, as the CABs are different for each version, obviously.

Pulse

YES! Got a whole bunch of .dlls that it asked for but now it has me stumped, its asking for the file "networks" No extensions, searching for it on google (not surprisingly) gets me nowhere.

Talesin

Silencer.. two things. One, which version of Windows is it, as asked in the post just prior. Two, check your PMs.

Pulse

Talesin... One thing, I already stated my version of windows in my third post in this thread <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
[edit] If your too lazy to scroll all the way up there, its win98 [/edit]

Talesin

Fifth, but yeah, I'd missed it in the bit of rantishness. I've been skimming over ticked-off portions of posts more and more recently, excepting if I catch something that's been snuck past the profanity filter.

Pulse

I don't need the .cab files, I have those on my driver disk for the new NIC, but I'm still stuck on that 'networks' file, you happen to have win98 talesin?

Talesin

I do. However, what you've got on the driver disc is the <b>NIC</b> CABs, when you need the Win98 CABs.

<span style='color:red'>*Large postcount++ of pointless Jobabob-rambling deleted after this post.*</span>

Vash7h3Stampede

I only have one thing to say Windows\options\cabs\ If you don't have it, put it on there. For those of you who don't know, it is a little something that you can put on your HDD from the CD and it is basically a repository of all the drivers and other little files that you might need. Basically, whenever Win98 asks for its disk, you put in the above directory, and BAM! you've got whatever you need.

DOOManiac

I stopped reading the post when I came across "ISA".

Get a PCI nic and a PCI sound card. life will be better.

Mercior

TBH if your pc is so old that it actually has an ISA slot, you need a new one <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->

Also I can assure you that XP is infinately better than 98, especially for someone such as yourself