NIC driver help needed

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 6:42 pm

Hi,

I need drivers for my network card. The card is a netgear fa311 fast ethernet pci card and the OS is Win 2000 Pro.

Can someone please help me out in finding the right drivers? Much appreciated for any help you can provide.

I tried both of the ones from the page below and neither worked. Can I please get some help with this?

http://kbserver.netgear.com/products/FA311.asp

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 6:51 pm

Those are them. What specifically is going wrong when you use those drivers? You don't use "both" of them...you, as the page says, select version 1 or version 2...based on whichever you card is.

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 7:07 pm

It doesn't recognize either of them. Am I doing something wrong? I go into device mgr, I see a yellow ! and I see it next to ethernet controller, RC on it and select properties, select reinstall driver, wizard comes up and I select next, select search for suitable driver for my device, select check on floppy (which is what I put it on from that page) and select next, check off floppy disk drive and select next, and then it comes back saying windows was unable to locate a driver for this device. I then select finish.

It just won't work and I can't figure out why. Any ideas YOSC?

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 7:14 pm

For the v2 download if you're using XP make sure to download the original 1.0 driver, not the 6.10.

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 7:18 pm

YARDofSTUF wrote:For the v2 download if you're using XP make sure to download the original 1.0 driver, not the 6.10.

Win 2000 PRO.

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 8:05 pm

Is this NIC card compatible with win 2000 pro?

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:23 pm

I found this page http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/n100338.asp and did what it said to do. That almost worked. I got the OS to recognize the drivers, it listed it as "netgear fa311 fast ethernet pci adapter" but there is a yellow ! on it. Is there a way to fix this?

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:14 pm

24giovanni wrote:Win 2000 PRO.

if its a v2 you still want the 1.0 driver.

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:24 pm

YARDofSTUF wrote:if its a v2 you still want the 1.0 driver.

I've tried both. Neither work. Or are you saying about I need both?

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:25 pm

I found the original netgear drivers floppy and here is what it says to do:

NETGEAR FA311/FA312 PCI Card
------------------------------------------
Driver Installation for Microsoft Windows 2000/ME
----------------------------------------------

Getting Started
---------------
The Windows 2000/ME installation CD is needed to complete this
installation.

The following example illustrates the installation of the FA312 adapter
card. The installation for the FA311 adapter card is exactly the same.
It is recommended that you complete the Windows 2000/ME installation prior
to inserting the adapter card into the system.

Insllation procedure
---------------------
1. Turn off your computer and plug the NETGEAR FA312 adapter into an
available PCI slot in your computer.

2. Turn on the power of your computer to boot up the system.

The Win2000/ME system will find the hardware and start prompting you
for the proper device driver.

3. Click on Next in the first Found New Hardware Wizard window.

The next Found New Hardware Wizard window pops up with a question
mark because Windows 2000/ME is not able to find a device driver that
matches the adapter card.

4. Select the "Search for a suitable diver for my device (recommended)
radio button and click on Next.

5. Insert the Drivers and Diagnostics disk into the floppy drive.
Select only "Floppy disk drives" option and click on Next.

Windows 2000/ME will indicate that a driver for the device has been
found. A floppy disk icon indicates that "a:\netfa31x.inf" is
where it is able to locate the device driver.

6. Click on Next.

A Digital Signature Not Found window pops up indicating that a
Microsoft digital signature does not exist.

7. Click on "Next" when "Digital Signature Not Found" window to
continue with the installation.

Windows 2000/ME starts copying files into the system.

8. Click on Finish to complete the installation.

Windows 2000/ME is ready to network afterwards. It is not necessary
to reboot the system to start networking. You can now remove the
Driver and Diagnostics disk.

Additional Information
----------------------
To futher customize the system, you can click on My Network Places at
the desktop. Examples of parameters that you can change are computer
and workgroup names, IP addresses, and additional network services.

Do you thunk I should do what it says and physically take the card out and put it back in a follow these directions? What do you all think?

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 6:35 am

24giovanni wrote: Do you thunk I should do what it says and physically take the card out and put it back in a follow these directions? What do you all think?

Uhm..yeah following the directions is generally a good idea.

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:35 am

The FA311's were a pain to get detected by win98 and win2k. When at the dialog to "search for best driver" choose to manually loacate the inf file and Browse... to the floppy win2k folder and select the inf file. If no joy, put the nic in the bottom PCI slot. For some odd reason I could never get that card to work if it's in the top slot or a slot next to a modem. Often the IRQ gets shared w/ a modem, so yank the PCI modem cause you don't need one anyway.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:01 am

2nd PCI slot from the top was the standard that PCI 2.1 standards back then suggested that you use for your NICs (developed by Intel and Compaq). As the top PCI slot often shared an IRQ with the video card..and/or AGP slot. Bottom PCI slot often shared an IRQ with ISA slots on the older boards for legacy devices....and commonly sound. Since Win2K..newer motherboards should be using APIC anyways instead of ACPI...so you have at least twice the available IRQs.

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:24 am

TonyT wrote:The FA311's were a pain to get detected by win98 and win2k. When at the dialog to "search for best driver" choose to manually loacate the inf file and Browse... to the floppy win2k folder and select the inf file. If no joy, put the nic in the bottom PCI slot. For some odd reason I could never get that card to work if it's in the top slot or a slot next to a modem. Often the IRQ gets shared w/ a modem, so yank the PCI modem cause you don't need one anyway.

Tony, That is the problem. I can not even find the .inf file listed on any of the files either downloaded or the floppy provided with the NIC. Why is that?

thx

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 9:43 am

24giovanni wrote:Tony, That is the problem. I can not even find the .inf file listed on any of the files either downloaded or the floppy provided with the NIC. Why is that?

thx

It's a ZIP file you download. You must unzip it first.
http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/dow ... q_zip2.htm

Pay attention to where you unzip these files...and force the install of your specific driver by pointing to that directory.

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:37 am

TonyT wrote:The FA311's were a pain to get detected by win98 and win2k. When at the dialog to "search for best driver" choose to manually loacate the inf file and Browse... to the floppy win2k folder and select the inf file. If no joy, put the nic in the bottom PCI slot. For some odd reason I could never get that card to work if it's in the top slot or a slot next to a modem. Often the IRQ gets shared w/ a modem, so yank the PCI modem cause you don't need one anyway.

Tony,

Mine was in the middle slot so I tried moving it to the bottom with the same result.

Does anyone have any ideas why I can't get this to work? Please help me.

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:41 am

YeOldeStonecat wrote:It's a ZIP file you download. You must unzip it first.
http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/dow ... q_zip2.htm

Pay attention to where you unzip these files...and force the install of your specific driver by pointing to that directory.

Trust me I know how. I unzipped them to a folder on my desktop. I then point the wizard to that folder and it can't find them. Try it yourself and see if you can find it, please?

As Tonyt has said, these cards are a bitch to install and to actually get working.

thx.

24giovanni · Post by **24giovanni** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:08 am

Ok, This is exactly what I am doing. I download the zip from the first post here. I then unzip that file to a folder on my desktop called netgear. I then copy that folder to a floppy. I then take that floppy place it in the PC with issues. Then I create a folder on the desktop and call it netgear and copy the contents of the floppy to that folder. I then go into the folder until I see a file called "netfa31.inf" which I believe is the intended driver. I then go into device manager to make sure I do not see any ethernet controller which I do not see. I then click on the very 1st entry on the tree and select action then scan for new HW. Once the ethernet contoller is found the wizard starts. I then select next, search for suitable driver for my device and select next, then I click of "specify a location" and click next, then I and point it to the location on my desktop to where the file "netfa31.inf" is located and click OK.

This is where it comes up saying "WINDOWS WAS UNABLE TO LOCATE THE DRIVER FOR THIS DEVICE" IN WHICH i CLICK FINISH.

Can someone please explain to me what I am doing wrong?

thx

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:35 pm

24giovanni wrote:Trust me I know how. I unzipped them to a folder on my desktop. I then point the wizard to that folder and it can't find them. Try it yourself and see if you can find it, please?

As Tonyt has said, these cards are a bitch to install and to actually get working.

thx.

I'd have to dig around and see if I have one of those NICs...I can't install it properly without actually having one.

I don't remember them as being a pain to install....used to install them all the time. They were very good NICs...excellent performance and throughput (the v1 models)...I remember a benchmark that measured latency with some NICs with online gaming..that v1 netgear model was in the top 3 for low latency.

Samuel4u · Post by **Samuel4u** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:26 am

I agree with the above post.

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 1:17 pm

Just type the path (whatever it is) into the Browse...text area.
If on Floppy A drive then type:
A:\FA311v2 V1.0\WIN2K\NETFA311V2.INF