Ot: Issues with new computer, what did I do wrong now?

So, on the 29th january I had the great idea to buy a new computer(gateway DX4840-11C) to use solely for Cad/Cam to program the cnc, and to only plug on the internet for the few minutes that I do online banking, which I've only done 3-4 times since buying it. Rest of the time it's never been on the net.
So yesterday I need to plug it on the internet again to do a quick transfer, and its not getting internet access. Usually I just plug it in and its good to go in a few seconds it picks it up, nothing more to worry about. So I wasted 3hrs between talking to my internet provider and searching for answers on the net using my old computer(the one I'm on now) and found no fix. It's picking up the right IP address, but zero transfer, yet I plug the same cable in my old computer and all is great. There was a power outage a couple weeks ago and it was on, both were on, so I figured maybe it fried a little something on the board.

So this morning I took it to futureshop, it did the same problem for them, guy uninstalled the driver for the realtek card, restarted and it worked. I get here, plug in, no go again. I do the same thing he did, still no go. Now I'm really getting pissed as I had a bad feeling about gateway and now I think I should have followed my instinct... so anyhow, I go into restore and click on the second one that is supposed to back up the few things I have on there and I figure its gonna bring it back to original everything the day I bought it. well.. not so easy afterall, now its telling me its unable to install windows on this hardware?. I thought it would reinstall it itself as I know its all on there on the disk, actually I didn't think it was even gonna uninstall it? but what do I know about computers... so, what now? I didn't do the back up disks(yeah, no computer comes with disks to cut costs..) I was gonna but didn't have writeable dvds here and never got them yet, kinda figured this would never happen this quickly, I've used the computer maybe a dozen times and I'm ready to take the 12gauge to it.

Anything more I can do on my end?, or just bring it back to futureshop and let them screw with it? or smash it and buy something else? (hard to find anything good eh?)

thanks and if anyone has a really good stable/reliable computer they can recommend please tell me. I wish I could use a Imac, but cad/cam says no go

SND said:

thanks and if anyone has a really good stable/reliable computer they can recommend please tell me. I wish I could use a Imac, but cad/cam says no go

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I don't know if that Gateway is a 'consumer' or high end model; I like to buy high end pro stuff a year old or so and find it NOS or factory refurbed. The professional level products tend to be quite a bit more robust. Using a Lenovo D20 workstation as my principal computer, rock solid. Had great luck with several Toshiba Tecra (pro level) laptops, all of which still run great- newest is 5 years old, oldest is from '99 and still works fine for surfing. Will go with a Lenovo laptop when I get another, though.

Its just a consumer grade, already off the shelf and its not 2 month that I've had it, ugh.
I was just thinking I did system restore a few times with my older computer running XP and it never had a problem resurrecting itself and I have no cd's for this old one either.

Anyhow, I'll likely take it back to the store in a few minutes and let them screw with it. I just doubled up everything I need on this one and rewrote the NC posts and such, hopefully it'll run ok if I need to program anything.

RMA it ASAP

Does it have the network card on board, or is it seperate? There wouldn't happen to be two cards in conflict (onboard and a seperate card both enabled)?

Seems to me that I had an issue with a Realtek: it was configured as an onboard network card, and also had integrated sound. When I added a wireless lan card to that pc, I disabled the onboard, but be darned if when I went to configure the new wireless card, the hardware installation wizard somehow figured when the LAN card connected, that the Realtek detected something was plugged into the speaker/mic jack. It was maddening and the only workaround was to get a different wireless lan card that somehow worked differently.

Personally i find when it comes to computers and getting to the web i find running a cat 5e or a cat6 to be far faster and totally reliable. Wireless around here is just painfully there's so many so close together it just seams to drop out - packets get lost way too often.

I built a dual-core *bare bones* kit in Nov. of 2010.

It has an Intel mother board with Realtek accessories built in.

The problems were similar to what Hu Flung Dung said.

I couldn't connect to my router with a cat5 network cable. The system wouldn't recognize the network adapter. After installing several different drives, it still wouldn't work.

Then it worked for about 45 seconds and the network light above the port went out.

Finally I installed it with the USB port to router connector cable. ( This is a Westell router #327).

It works fine now and the other wireless computers in the house work off of the wifi part of it.

The Realtek stuff never did pan out on this computer. If I ever need the network connection ( RJ-45 cable), an extra card is only about $12.


JAckal

After a power failure it is sometimes necessary to 'reboot' the router as well as the computer. You can also try the following from your command prompt;

Go to 'Run' and type cmd
Type "ipconfig /release all"
Then "ipconfig /renew all"
Then try "ipconfig" if you see ip addresses then try "ping 8.8.8.8" (thats Google's ip address) and if you get a reply you should be good to go.

Hope this helps,
Chazz

If it's onboard LAN, first thing I'd do is drop a DLink network card in it (about $10 or so) and see if it connects then. If it does, I'd be headed back for an RMA

I went through the various resets and ping google and such with the internet provider's tech yesterday, after all that he figured it had to be the computer. We couldn't get a reply, even if it seemed to pick up the right IP from my net provider.

I use a cat5 regular wire. I opened this new computer and its not really a card, its actually more like a small, maybe a cubic inch size cube hooked right to the main motherboard. I thought it might be a card that I could wiggle but no such thing. I assumed it had shorted in there with the power outage or something.
It also did appear to be going back and forth with the wireless which I don't have set up here, I haven't messed with windows 7 much yet(what's the big deal with 7 eh?, I don't see it.)

I ended up bringing it back to the store this evening and asked them to do whatever needs to get done to make it work again, and to do the booth up cd's and everything at the same time that I may need later on, as I'll clearly never do it myself.

I don't imagine the internet problem will be solved after this, it likely is a realtek problem. So I'll look at the USB option and the other card.
Plan was to eventually replace this old computer I'm using now with an imac so that I would feel a bit safer doing online banking and such, I was only switching the net to the new computer when needed, hoping that being new it should be safer.

SND,

If you bought a 300 buck or whatever computer for money's sake, then you might not like the price of a Mac.

I never played with Apple computers, so don't really know how much difference there is in Mac and PC.

I do think Linux is closer to Mac in everything but the interface, which the Linux Development team has done their damnedest to appeal to PC users.

When you get your machine back, you might look into Dl'ing a Linux Distribution and installing it. Free! How can you beat that?

Mac, each new .1 costs something like 129, like 10.1 to 10.2.. Win, each upgrade, Vista to 7 is 100 or so for home, and hundreds for Pro..

I'm running SuSE 10.3 on this machine, and have DL'd 11.3 64 bit, FREE. Hell, I am using this machine because my Win machine, main one, won't allow me to get to this Forum.
The interface of Linux is not ALL that different than a Win machine.

Cheers,

George

Check in the Device Manager and see if the ethernet card shows up. I ran into an issue a couple weeks back where it didn't. Had to reboot in safe mode, open up the Device Manager, delete the card (that showed up in safe mode but not normal mode), rebooted, the card installed automatically, and it started working again.