How-To Geek

Recently put a new Gigabyte motherboard with an A64 X2 4000 2.1G processor on my computer. Under my network connections I have two 1394 connections on the list, I do have a fire wire connection on the back, not hooked up though, but when I plug in the Ethernet to its connection there is no response as to acquiring a network address.

I click the status of the connections and no IP is assigned. Am I lacking a driver or is it maybe disabled from the CMOS? I know the router is working fine since my Xbox 360 gets on to the internet no problem. I double checked the quality of the cable that is running to the pc too.

I did look in the device manager and it has the "1394" adaptors listed and no yellow question mark under the network adapters. I put the cable on my xbox 360 and it worked fine accessing the internet, I tried every port on the back of the router and didn't see any blinking, no luck with any of it.

I kind of went around the problem and bought an Ethernet card, as soon as I installed it it detected a "lan" connection, and was able to get set with the Internet. You think possibly I got a flawed motherboard? I forgot to mention I went to website and downloaded the new drivers for the motherboard too, no luck.

Nothing wrong with your motherboard, Crazyeye. 1394 ports are for connecting two local devices together for sharing resources -- this is the preferred method for local networking since 1394 allows much faster data transfer compared to a 10/100 network card. However, 1394 doesn't give you internet access. That's where the network card comes in to play.