help - wired NIC suddenly very slow download

[olympic]

I'm hoping someone can help. I am running XP Media Center Edition. I have an HP Pavillion DV8330us laptop with an integrated Intel Pro 100 VE network adapter.

The problem suddenly cropped up. I'm access the net via cable. The download speeds are approx 20 - 70kb/s. Upload speeds are still great at approx 1.5 M/s.

I was getting about 4 M/s download speeds until just last night. Other machines on my network are still experiencing normal download speeds. Just this one laptop with a wired connect is downloading at dialup like speeds.

Now, I thought perhaps a firewall update or something caused it...nope. I disabled the CA personall firewall and the windows firewall and the same problem exists.

Here's where it gets interesting. I unplugged the wire and enabled wireless and connected that way and my download speeds went back to 4M/s.

the problem is only on the wired connect. I plugged into a different port on my router, no difference. I changed ethernet cables, no difference.

the basic windows network diag tools claim the integrated network adapter is working normally.

I'm stumped. Is the NIC bad or could something else be severely restricting the download speeds only when plugged in wired?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

[cchooper]

That does sound really strange -- A bad cable was my first guess but I see you already covered that. I'd say run through the standard scenario of scanning for spyware, virii, etc, and updating your drivers -- Perhaps it's a known issue that's been fixed.

[olympic]

Thanks for the reply. I ran a CA anti-virus scan last night and it came back clean. I did check the network adapter drivers and it says they are the latest.

I figured bad cable too. Now I'm suspicious of it being a bad network adapter...but I would love to know for sure.

I did have a brainstorm....I'm going to run down to bestbuy and see if they have a pcmcia ethernet card. if so, that should be an inexpensive way to see if plugging into that wired solves the problem. if so, then I will assume the integrated NIC is bad. if the same problem exists, then I'm still stumped but would know it's not the NIC but something else.

I welcome any other ideas anyone has. thanks!

[olympic]

OK. I suspect the NIC is bad. I just ventured out to bestbuy and picked up a dynex cardbus ethernet adapter. I installed it, plugged by patch cable into it and viola....I got 5300 kb/s on my first download speed test. I'm back in business.

So, I still wonder why the integrated network adapter works fine at full upload, but is severely throttled for download.

If anyone has any additional things to try on the NIC let me know. At least I can work again using the pcmcia adapter.

thanks

[SimpleC]

Physical layer...

Pins 1+2 are Transmitt Data and pins 3+6 are recieve. Like a radio, it is possible to lose a transmit and still recieve and vice versa... Chances are good an IC chip blew out in the NIC and that's why your getting that problem.