How Come When I Change My NIC From Auto To 100/Half Duplex/Full Duplex, My Internet Connection Fails?

Question

I'm Trying to Run At 100mbps, But When I Try To Change It, My Connection Drops All Together. What Gives?

I Have An Intel PRO/100 VE, So It Does Support 10/100.

If I Change It Manually To 10/half/full duplex, it works fine. hmmmm.

Answer 1

the probablity is that the device you are attaching to does not support 10/100.

check your connection speed in your os ... it is probably 10mbit.

when in auto mode .. it auto detects what you need, in manual mode it has to be right.

some internet devices think that since you are connecting to a sub 10 Mbit connection that 10 Mbit ethernet is ok.

You could also be flushing out bugs in your nic's drivers or the underlying hardware. this is less probable, but has happened .. only a month ago in our lab in fact .. some poor programmer had to spend a week fixing it .. but this was a device that you are unlikely to have and a bug that went undetected for a year.

Answer 2

If you change it to a fixed setting and your connection fails it means that the port on the other end of the connection is not compatible with what you have selected.

Many DSL modems and cable modems actually have 10 Mbps ports. If you try to set your computer's NIC to 100 Mbps manually the connection will fail. In most cases it's best to leave it on Auto.