Cannot connect to Internet after upgrading to Windows 7 64bit Aspire M5100

I upgraded from Vista Home Premium 32 bit, to Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. I have a Marvell yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller. I've tried updating the driver, but that still didn't solve the problem. I am able to connect via a usb wireless adapter.

I saw that someone else had this problem with a M3100 and the solved the problem by replacing the Ethernet card. I am hoping that I don't have to do that since I upgraded to Windows 7 using an OEM version. From what I understand you cannot change out any hardware after installing the OEM version.

When I ran the Windows 7 upgrade advisor there were to compatiblity issues: 1) the Ethernet card, 2) the display adapter.

It said to go to the device manufacturer website and download latest driver. I thought that is what I did, but it still didn't work. I don't have any "exclamation points" in device manager. Everything says it is working properly.

Maybe I am not dowloading the correct driver. Should I just go to the driver and update driver instead of picking one myself and downloading it?

If I do end up installing a new Ethernet card will it work?

Any suggestions?

Accepted answers

Alan-London

Good. It just remains to install and configure the new network card. Hopefully, assuming Murphy isn't looking, it should be plain sailing! Let me know how it goes.

All comments

laurent_14

Hello Love-Hate-Tech,

Have you checked if the ethernet controller is activated in win7?

Otherwise you uninstall the current driver and you install the driver 11.45.3.3 (red) of Marvell website

3/27/12	Windows Setup Installer (32- and 64-bit) for Yukon Controllers	11.45.4.3
1/20/12	Windows 7 & Server 2008 R2 x64 (64-bit)	11.45.3.3
5/14/10	Network Control Utility for Aggregation and VLANs in x86 & x64 XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008	11.12.6.3

Alan-London

It doesn't appear that Acer released your model with Win7. Consequently, no driver is available from Acer.
Try this Win7 driver for the 88E8056 from the Marvell site:

http://www.marvell.com/support/downloads/driverSearchResults.do;jsessionid=ZVhyTLLZGTZ7cjMn6BhZvkDyPpBqQmDbjTl8JB1F2lzQ0p72cXYn!-1736082578#

There is no restriction to changing your network card should you need to.
Windows checks the following hardware for changes:

Display Adapter
SCSI Adapter
IDE Adapter
Network Adapter (including the MAC Address)
RAM Amount
Processor Type and Serial Number
Hard Drive Device and Volume Serial Number
Optical Drive

I'm not sure of the weighting assigned to each item now but it works on a 'tot-up' system (which, if memory serves, will reset over time). I suspect that a motherboard change would flag a need to reactivate (which Microsoft may or may not allow) but something like RAM would not. Changing multiple low weighted items at the same time may also take you 'over the top' and flag accordingly. I also run OEM Win7 (I was the system builder) and have made numerous changes without issue.

Love-Hate-Tech

laurent_14

I am unable to try ANY new driver. When I try to update the driver I get the message that says Windows has determined the driver software for your device is up to date.

I have the drivers on a flash drive, but it will not accept them.

Any ideas?

Love-Hate-Tech

Alan-London

I am unable to try ANY new driver. When I try to update the driver I get the message that says Windows has determined the driver software for your device is up to date.

I have the drivers on a flash drive, but it will not accept them.

Any ideas?

I am wondering if the reason I am getting that message is because Marvell Yukon 88E8056 does not support Windows 7 like you mentioned earlier.

If so, then my next question is how do I know which Network Adapter will work? Should I just break down and buy a usb wireless adapter?

I am not real computer savy. I can add RAM. I looked inside expecting to see a card with an ethernet port on it, but what I see is a metal box that the ethernet cable plugs into. The card has a regular phone line jack plug.

Thanks so much for your help.

I love technology, but I hate technology! Smiley Happy

Alan-London

No, I'm not saying the 88E8056 does not support Win7! It does. I'm saying the reason Acer have not provided a driver is because they haven't released the M5100 with Win7.

I suspect you are 'asking' Win7 to update the driver which is resulting in 'driver is up to date'. Does the driver from Marvell that you downloaded not have an installer or setup.exe?

If not, right click the driver in device manager and select 'update driver software...' then select 'Browse...'.
Select 'Let me pick from a list...' and then click 'Have Disk...'. From the 'Install from Disk' window, click 'Brose...'.

Navigate to the new driver location and search for the .inf file.

Your card should have an RJ45 socket, not a 'regular phone line jack plug'.

Love-Hate-Tech

Alan-London

Okay, I was finally able to get the 11.45.4.3 installed. It didn't work. Smiley Sad

Do you have any other suggestions? Here are a couple of pictures so you can see what I am talking about.

The card on the bottom with the wire coming out has a regular phone plug on it. The metal box above it to the left is the ethernet plug.

Alan-London

The phone line is connected to your 56K modem. Not too much use these days!

I don't have any docs for the M5100 so I've had a wander on the net and it doesn't look promising.

Unfortunately, your 88E8056 Ethernet is integrated (which may explain why the Marvell Win7 driver won't

work). All I've managed to find are failed attempts to get this working. Just for the hell of it, I would try the

Vista 64bit - you never know your luck but I suspect if someone had tried and was successful I would have found it.

Your best option may be to simply buy a cheap PCI Ethernet card (with Win7 drivers of course) and disable the Marvell

hardware in device manager.

Love-Hate-Tech

Alan-London

I will do that and report back.

Thanks for your help.

Alan-London

Ok. In retrospect, I should have asked what the result of the successful installation was. You know, did it install but report that it had a problem etc.

One further thought. If you do elect to buy a card, you may wish to check your BIOS. It is common to be able to disable the LAN card there. If the option is present, it will at least remove the device form device manager and make things a little tidier.

Love-Hate-Tech

Alan-London

I should have asked you first. Hopefully, I didn't make a mistake. I bought TP-LINK Gigabit PCIe Express Network Adapter Ethernet 10/100/1000 NIC - TG-3468. Will this one work? (fingers crossed)

Alan-London

Yes, this should be OK (but I can't guarantee of course) - you have one PCIe X1 slot as far as I can see (the short black one).
There are two versions of this card, V1 and V2. It should come with the necessary drivers but, should you need to download for any reason, just ensure you obtain the correct one. As you say, fingers crossed!

Love-Hate-Tech

Alan-London

I am still waiting for my card to come. I do have to ask you about disabling the card that doesn't work. You mentioned going into the bios to disable it. I was wondering if it is okay to go into Device Manager and just disable it that way? It was easy to do, but if that is problematic then I will go the bios route.

Alan-London

Disabling in device manager is perfectly acceptable. In terms of effectiveness, both achieve the desired result.
However, my choice would always be to disable through the BIOS where possible as this effectively removes the card from the machine. From then on, the BIOS will ignore it and it will no longer present to Windows.

Where disabled in device manager, Windows will still load the driver (but that's as far as it goes). Although the operational impact of disabling in device manager is, to all intents and purposes, nil, it does leave it untidy for those of us who just hate to see flags on problem devices! Smiley Happy

In short, choose whichever available method suits you.

Love-Hate-Tech

Do I hit the F12 key to get into the BIOS? Could you give me some instructions on where to find it in the BIOS? I do hate the thought of it loading for no reason.

Alan-London

I don't have full documentation for the M5100 but I believe you need to press F2 to enter the BIOS.
I also believe you have a Phoenix BIOS. If I am looking at the correct BIOS, the opening page will list a number of sections. From this page:

Cursor to 'Integrated Peripherals' and press enter.
Cursor to 'South OnChip PCI Device' and press enter.
On the list, you should see 'Onboard LAN Controller'. Toggle to read 'Disabled'.
Press F10 to save the revised settings and exit.

If I'm not looking at the correct BIOS, you will need to navigate the menus until you find 'Onboard LAN Controller' (or similar) and toggle to read disabled. Be careful not to make any other changes (you can always press ESC to exit without saving changes if you make any error).

Love-Hate-Tech

Yes! You were correct that I have the Phoenix BIOS. I had to press the delete key to enter the BIOS. I never would have figured this out without your instructions.

No more icons in Device Manager. Smiley Happy

Thanks!!!

Alan-London

Good. It just remains to install and configure the new network card. Hopefully, assuming Murphy isn't looking, it should be plain sailing! Let me know how it goes.