I formatted and put on a fresh install of Win98se on my hard drive. I installed all the drivers (including the ethernet card). When I try to connect to the internet (ADSL) using my ethernet LAN card, I instantly get the "the page cannot be displayed" screen in Internet Explorer 5 and at the bottom of that page it says " cannot find server or DNS from Internet Explorer". I know my card works because I can see the green light lit.

Did you install any ISP software?

When you run ipconfig are you getting an IP address?

Soylent Green is PEOPLE!

Personally, I would not recommend the ISP's software. It is not needed once the modem or router is set up with the logon details. Some ISPs (in particular the larger ones) provide buggy software which does more harm than good.

Once you are sure that the network card is in fact working, run the internet connection wizard. Tell it that you want to connect through a network and have it autodetect settings. Doing this will tell your computer where to look for the internet.

I get no ip address (I ran release and renew, still nothing). The ISP software doesn't do anything. I installed the ethernet card drivers and Device Manager says it it operational with no conflicts. I ran the connection wizard many times through the LAN setting with autodetect and still nothing. I've had this happen before many years ago. I took the computer to a computer store and they fixed it, but of course they didn't show me how they did it.

You won't get anything until you put in all the numbers from your ISP. IP, Gateway, etc.
that's why ipconfig is not showing anything.
DSL needs these numbers, unlike cable, which
uses DHCP.

Here is the Win98 .txt file that is on the ethernet driver CD. In step 4 I don't see "F5D5000, PCI Card/Desktop Network PCI Card" in my list. Maybe this is the problem.?

Configuring the NDIS5 Miniport driver on Microsoft Windows 98

1) Click the "My Computer" icon in the Main Program Group.

2) Click the "Control Panel" icon in the My Computer window.

3) Click the "Network" icon in the Control Panel window.

4) Select the "F5D5000, PCI Card/Desktop Network PCI Card" item
from the "Network" dialog box, then click the "Properties" button.

5) Click the "Advanced" button in the "F5D5000, PCI Card/Desktop Network
PCI Card Properties" dialog box.

6) Select the Link Speed value (Auto Mode,10 Half Mode,10 Full Mode,
100 Half Mode,100 Full Mode) for the "Value" item, then click the
OK button in the "F5D5000,PCI Card/Desktop Network PCI Card
Properties" dialog box.

7) Click the OK button in the "Network" dialog box.

8) Restart your computer to realize the new configuration.

Those instructions are to install the drivers for a card you may not have.

How exactly are you trying to connect to the net, through a router or directly to the modem?

You will need to boot/reboot the computer after the modem has reconnected. Make sure that an ADSL light is showing, it should be green. If you also have a router, this must alos be operational before you start the computer. These instructions assume that your ISP or modem / router uses DHCP.

Before rebooting, you might check your network settings. Go into control Panel, double click the network icon, highlight the TCP/IP and click on the properties button. Make sure that 'Obtain settings automatically' is selected.

The instructions came in the Win98 readme.txt on the CD that came with the card new. I have an external ADSL modem. I don't have a router. The ADSL light is green. What is DHCP and how do I know if it uses it. The TCP/IP also says "->Dial-up Adaptor" after it. I can add more network components but my cards name brand is not listed.

You need TCP/IP without any other qualifiers. If that is not there your ethrtnet adaptor may be only sort of installed. Plug an ethernet cable between the computer and modem. Make sure that the ethernet light is lit on both the modem and the card. Reboot your computer. Hopefully windows will find new hardware and install the drivers and correct protocols. You will probably need to use the Win98 CD.

If this does not work, try deleting the network card in device manager then reboot.

go to internet tools in internet explorer and then goto conections tab and set lan settings

i have a 8 years old pc i brought it in 1998 it has win98 3.75 gb hrddisk v.92 56k modem 32x cd drive hdd floppy drive and a sound card

I've done all that but now my card keeps disabling itself in device manager. I enable it, the green light goes on, then I got to network settings and make sure all that info is setup, then I goto the connection wizard and set that up, then restart. Then the card is disabled again. I've done all this in different orders and done everything that you guys told me to do and still nothing.

When Windows starts the ethernet card light goes out, and when I restart the light goes back on till Windows restarts again. I also noticed a conflict:

Memory Range 00000000 - 000000FF used by:
System board extension for PnP BIOS
Input/Output Range 0000 - 00FF used by:
Programmable interrupt controller
Input/Output Range 0000 - 00FF used by:
Numeric data processor

That conflict may be the cause of your problems.

Remove your network adaptor from device manager then turn off your computer.

Disconnect the mains cable and open the case. Remove the network adaptor from the case. Plug back in the power cable and reboot your computer.

Once again shut down and disconnect the mains. Reinstall the network card, connect the ethernet cable and reconnect the mains. On this reboot, hopefully everything will be correctly recognised.

If this does not work, try repeating the above steps but place the card in a different PCI slot.

I did what you said and one of my slots works. So now there is no conflict, the light is on, driver's installed and everything. I did the connection wizard and everything else throughout this post sucessfully. I tried connecting to the internet useing internet explorer 5 and it said it was detecting proxy settings (which I haven't got it to do before), tried to connect to my home page then went to the same "page cannot be displayed" and got a DNS error. DNS is not enabled in my settings. Does this matter and what is DNS?
I feel I'm so close to making this work!

I think that there is enough information in this thread to go back over.

Check if you ave an IP address. At the command prompt type 'ipconfig' and press enter. You should get an address like 192.168.0.XX. The actual number is not important so long as it does not return 0.0.0.0.

If you do not get a valid IP address, go to network settings and check that 'obtain settings automatically' is selected under TCP/IP properties (not dialup).

Try running the Internet Connection Wizard to tell IE were to find the internet.

I forgot a couple of posts ago to explain DHCP. It stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. This allows a network device to allocate private IP addresses to other network devices and only use one global Ip address for itself. This was initially developed to overcome the limited number of addresses available. Before this, each device on a network had to be allocated an unique IP address which had to be entered manually. Now computers can request an address from the host device which keeps track of these.

I have a IP address now. I tried running connection wizard but it still doesn't work.
I ran winipcfg and all the information is there and seems to be normal.

You could try the ping cammand to check connectivity. At the command prompt, type 'ping computing.net' and hit return. You might need to allow this through your firewall.

If this works, you might like to check the internet connection as pointed out by Ali in reply 10. Although I personally prefer to access it through control panel, internet connections.

The ping command worked. The LAN setting are set to automatic. I tried updating my Anti-virus online but it just froze. I notice the ethernet card light was flickering when I tried updating.

It sounds like you have the network card working. Have you tried opening IE to a safe site such as google?

Yes, google is set to my home page. I did a diagnostic that came with my card, and it said:

I/O Register: Passed
Loopback test: Failed

I don't know if this is normal or not. I got the same results before and after I got the card working.

The loopback test will normally fail unless you have a loopback plug installed.

It might be that the modem does not have the logon details stored on it. In which case you may have to use the ISP's CD to setup connection.

I would also try to log on to the modem. You do this by typing the IP address into the browser and it should return a html interface page. I can't tell you the address. My D-Link is 10.1.1.1. Your manual will tell you more.

I intalled my ISP software and now the internet works. It also installed a ISP version of IE6 which I uninstalled. Then I tried the internet with IE5 and it still worked. I guess Win98 needs the ISP software to make the internet work. With my other computer which has XP I don't need the ISP software to connect (I guess its all automatic), I just plug in the ethernet cord.

Thanks so much for helping me, you save me money and I learned alot!! I am very happy!!!!

It's a learning experience for us all. One of the things that the ISP software does is installs the username and password. Although this is usually into the modem. It should remember this until its cmos memory is reset (that little button on the back).

It's a bit late now, but you probablly should have mentioned your other computer sooner.

Great News!

You need DNS, Gateway, and ADSL router or modem range of IP address for your PC to connect internet in Win98se.
Find DNS for isp, use adsl router ip address as a gateway, and use diffrent ip address of same range for your pc.