I have a machine with an embedded Broadcom gigabit NIC running Vista Ultimate. For some reason, Vista only sees the NIC as 10/100. I have tried disabling auto negotiate on both the switch and the PC. When I try to manually set the speed and duplex on the PC, I only have 10/100 options available. I know for certain this is a gigabit NIC, but for some reason Vista does not enable that speed. I have downloaded the newest drives to no avail as well. Any help?
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Broadcom NIC & Vista
- Thread starter MorfiusX
- Start date
The lack of options could be normal. I see 10 half, 10 full, 100 half, 100 full, and "auto". This is a common set of options, which encourage the usage of auto-negotiation, esp. for gigabit speed. Auto-negotiation is mandatory for gigabit, so there should (in theory) be no reason to require forced 1000 settings. (Of course, it's sometimes better to have the option than not for those cases where things don't work according to theory.)
Now assuming the drivers are fine and the NIC is fine, the next step might be to double-check the cabling (is it handmade or factory terminated?) and whatever's connected on the other side -- the setting should be auto, not forced. Forced gives problems in some cases.
If it's a "server" NIC, I guess the problem could be with the drivers -- I only see official Vista drivers from Broadcom for their "desktop" NICs.
Now assuming the drivers are fine and the NIC is fine, the next step might be to double-check the cabling (is it handmade or factory terminated?) and whatever's connected on the other side -- the setting should be auto, not forced. Forced gives problems in some cases.
If it's a "server" NIC, I guess the problem could be with the drivers -- I only see official Vista drivers from Broadcom for their "desktop" NICs.
It's a desktop NIC. Checking the cable I didn't think to do. I know all about the gigabit standards, I was just trying to troubleshoot. I have also seen gigabit NICs that could not be manually set to gigabit speeds as you mention. I'll try switching out the cable.
Nasty_Savage
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I followed here from another thread. I can confirm that at least on the server side, Broadcom Nics in Dell servers do not have a 1000/FD hard set option...it will only auto Negotiate. What board do you have (assuming its an embedded nic...)
I just tried a BCM5751-based HP PCIe NIC in Vista RTM x64.
Both the built-in MS drivers and the latest Broadcom drivers don't have forced 1000 options, but still auto-negotiate fine in my case (and also give decent performance in basic iperf tests), with a couple of different switches.
Both the built-in MS drivers and the latest Broadcom drivers don't have forced 1000 options, but still auto-negotiate fine in my case (and also give decent performance in basic iperf tests), with a couple of different switches.