Dell Precision 690 Xeon - LAN Dissapeared

rush_syndrome · 28 Nov 2010 at 17:42

My trusty twin xeon dell precision 690 got updated to Win7 from Vista Business and since has refused to connect to the net. After looking at device manager, it says the Broadcom device fails to start (code10). I have done all the obvious things like uninstall, roll back driver etc but to no avail. I took the Vista drivers from Dell and according to Dells' compaitbility tester, they should work with Win7. I also re ran the BIOS utility and re-flashed the latest ver 8.x but that made no difference.

I also tried adding another PCI card but device manager doesn't see it either - it's as if the whole PCI bus has gone awol. I have loaded the Intel Chipset drivers and they appear to have taken, but because I cannot get it onto the net, I cannot update the drivers with Windows Update or the Intel search and replace updater.

I am also using an LSi Megaraid on the PCIE bus but this is shown in the DM and the drives are all working. Worse case scenario is a buy a PCIE network device (the gigabit LAN is maxed out anyway) so was looking at either a 2TB fibre controller or similar that I could runn into my Cisco switch.

As a workaround if I can find a spare USB wifi card, I can get the net up and running through USB and then try win update, but it fails it would totally negate the point of having a file server with wifi bandwidth.

Any pointers greatly appreciated

ethos · 28 Nov 2010 at 17:55

Second hit on google:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/f/3524/p/19296232/19558960.aspx

I had no problem installing Windows 7 Ultimate on my Precision 690. Windows installed all of the necessary drivers with the exception of the ethernet card which is not supported for 64 bit.

Broadcom.com states they have x64 drivers for the 5752 on windows 7 though. Have you tried them directly from broadcom?

http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/netxtreme_desktop.php

rush_syndrome · 28 Nov 2010 at 18:49

Thanks, I've already done that, the driver is initially accepted and updated, then fails with the "device failed to start code10" message immediately afterwards.

That Win7 driver is the same one as listed as the Vista driver just updated. I would consider myself good with system builds as an admin but Dell is unchartered territory.

rush_syndrome · 29 Nov 2010 at 18:16

Problem resolved. Fitted a HP NC7170 into the 66Mhz slot, Windows found the drivers, then did a Windows update and there was the driver for existing NIC.

All installed and running with no problems.