Hi, I'm a newbie with networking and need help. I'm not up on all the terminology, so sorry if my description is off, but here goes: I have this old computer that I'm trying to put a network card in for a friend. The card is a Linksys 10/100 LNE100TX ver 5.1. The computer works fine without the network card in, but once I put it in the computer does not appear to even boot up. I plugged in an ethernet cable and the lights on the card came on, so at least that much is working. I checked the Bios and the boot order is A, C, SCSI (I could only do this with the card out, because with it in the computer just sits idling as if it is dead). Some concerns I have is that Win95 is the OS, and the processor is an AMD K5 166mhz. My friend has pretty much run out of ideas and he suggested that perhaps the motherboard/processor are not getting along with the NIC. If this is the case does anyone know of a brand that might work better with this computer setup? Thanks.

Well, either the network card is bad or the system board has a problem. Make sure the card is in correctly and not shorting out. I would bet on the card begin bad. If the card has a socket with a EPPROM or ROM module plugged into it, remove the pluggable module and try again. It is not required and could be causing a problem.

Just to give an update: I switched the network card to the pci slot where my video card had been, and I put the video card in it's place. And for whatever reason the computer started up (this being with the NIC in it). Of course then it was confused by the vid card moving, and I had a heck of a time installing the drivers for the NIC because it kept on wanting the Win95 cd - which is currently "misplaced" at the moment - but I was able to work around that, and everything *appears* to be working now.