Several months ago I set up a DI-624 with a Dell Laptop, wireless, and homebrew P4/2.4. Everything worked fine. The laptop connects fine over secured wireless network or through an ethernet cable, and the P4 connects fine via an ethernet cable. The modem is a Surboard 3100 cable modem.

I just built a system around the A8N32-SLI Deluxe with dual gigabit ethernet connections. I am connecting through the NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 Southbridge built-in Gigabit MAC with external Marvell 88E1111 PHY supports, and have also tried connecting through the Marvell® 88E8053 PCI-E Gigabit LAN controller with the same results.

In short, connecting directly to the cable modem the DHCP works and I have a live connection. Connecting through any of the ports (other than uplink) of the router yields a "limited or no connectivity" error and the asignment of a 169. IP address (the active range on the 624 is 193.168.0.100-200). I have manually assigned IP, MAC, Gateway and DNS on both LAN connections with no change. I have ensured that all drivers are up to date and searched the Asus forums for help (no luck).

At the same time that I cannot connect the Asus via the ethernet cable I was able to connect without problems from the laptop or P4, either by ethernet cable or the wireless connection from the laptop.

I have Network Magic on the laptop and eventually the 169 IP address has been (at times) detected as an intruder, though I am still left with "little or no connectivity" message. Yes, I have reset the TCP/IP stack as well but it changed nothing. I cannot ping the router from the Asus, nor can I open its web-browser configuration (though I can from the other PCs).

I could pay my ISP for an additional account and this would most likely be a successful workaround (by adding a switch), but I want to find what is wrong and fix it. One thought I have had is that perhaps the tolerance for any variance from, perhaps, voltage standards, is tighter on the gigabit LAN connector than the 10/100mbs connectors, and that perhaps the Surfoard modem relays a signal that is within this tolerance but the 624 does not. I know that's a stretch, but it's one of the few possibilities I could think of.

The rest of the system is a 600 watt dual-rail Rosewill PS, Raptor 150gb for OS and programs, 320 gb WD SATA II drive for storage and lots of air cooling (37 degree CPU after running Prime 95 for several hours).

I apologize in advance if I have given too much information, but I see so many requests for more detail that I have tried to anticipate those questions in advance. Any help is appreciated.

Well, you know the onboard NIC is working fine because you can connect when plugged directly into the modem. This narrows the problem down to either cabling or the router itself.

You said you tried all ports on the router with no luck so that could be a problem with the router itself. Except for the fact that the other PC and laptop get connectivity. The big question at this point is: have you tried a different patch cable? Try unplugging the cable from the PC that is getting connectivity and plug it into your new PC. If it works, then you know you have to replace the patch cable you were using.

see if you can't set the gigabit interface to 100mb full duplex instead of auto on the asus. I believe this is where the issue resides

Give a person a fish, they eat for a day. Suggest they internet search and they learn a skill for a lifetime.

Thanks for the prompt feedback. I have already tried various cables...cables which work on the laptop or P4 do not work on the Asus, and the cable that did not work on the Asus works on those.

I will go into the set up for the lan and see if I can change that. Hmmm, I've already told my wife (who uses the laptop) about the 300 mbs wireless protocol and gigabit LAN...maybe SHE'D like a new router and wireless card!

Art

Oh...I also found an old USB 1.1 connected external 10/100 NIC which I will take home and try.

I tried setting the LAN as recommended, but no dice. I also tried an external LinkSys (usb-connected) NIC with exactly the same results.

On the Asus board another user reported exactly the same situation to me using the same router. He left these details:

I have exactly problem as you on my mobo P5N32 SLI Deluxe. I still searching for the solution but what I have found the cause. I run ipconfig at windows command prompt I have that shown (see below):
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-17-31-96-94-40

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration IP Address. . . : 169.254.137.179

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
The IP Address should be 192.168.0.xxx , Subnet Mask is 255.255.255.xxx, and Default Gateway is 192.168.0.1 which I set on the DHCP server on DI 624.

What happens is that if my local IP address is returned as 169.254.y.z with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0, the IP address was assigned by the Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) feature of Windows XP Professional. This assignment means that TCP/IP is configured for automatic configuration, that no DHCP server was found eventhough the DI 624 is ON, and that no alternative configuration is specified. This configuration has no default gateway for the interface.

There is no problem on the physical connection. I don't know why the DI 624 router can't see the on-board LAN and vice versa. I'll give you an update if I find the solution.

So...he has found the problem, perhaps, but not a solution. I'll try setting an alternate configuration, but doubt that will work as the static IP did not work either.

Does his information help? Networking is not my long-suit.

Art