Is it plugged in?
I have been having some computer hardware problems with my personal workstation since last night. Because I only had my Domino server and my workstation set up, I was kinda out of business. I was tired and the wife and kids finally got home from their Hurricane Rita de-evacuation at about 8:45 PM so I was trying to shoehorn in some quality time with Momma anyway. (The wife and kids drove their normal route home straight down state highway 36 from Belville to Damon and encountered no problems.)
I got back on the problem this morning–that’s both the quality time and the computer problem– and I think I got them both knocked out. My computer was unable to talk on the network. It could see the network connections, but every time I’d try to talk on it, Windows Explorer would crash, especially on internet ftp connections. So I’m checking this and checking that and finally narrow the problem down to the NIC, which is an on-board job from Via. So I figure I will have to disable the on-board LAN and shove in a PCI network adapter.
Before I cracked the case I knew, according to the standard troubleshooting process, that I needed to check the cable. Even though I knew it wasn’t the cable, the manual says check the cable. I always make sure one of my good cables is attached to my workstation; not one of those home made jobbers I have all over the place. So even though I know it’s not the cable…
It was the cable.