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Many of us are familiar with Ethernet Controllers. This network interface is needed to connect your computer to high speed internet. Fed up with snail speed internet services, many consumers are switching to high speed. The Ethernet Controller is the most common source of interface connectivity today. It replaced Token Ring and Appletalk. Due to its popularity many PC’s are available today with Ethernet interface.

However, there are many companies that sell add-in Ethernet controllers. If your computer did not come with one, you may find one produced by 3Com, Linksys, and D-Link. It is also possible for your computer to support more than one, and provide the ability to be used as a router or gateway. You will find an address on your controller. It has 6 octets (full bytes). The first three sets of numbers represent the manufactures ID number. For example Dell computer ID number is 00-08-74.

The first solution is that you need to look at the flash bios on your motherboard. Most of the time, the Ethernet function is one that is placed on board the motherboard, and if you are installing an external Ethernet device, there will be conflicts because the operating system will try to launch both the hardware and there will be a problem there. If you are installing a new Ethernet device, you need to look at the onboard motherboard functions that are there.

There will be always the option for you to disable the onboard Ethernet controller and this should solve most of the problems. How you get to your BIOS is really up to the manufacturer of the motherboard, but usually you can see the instruction on the start-up screen before your bios is launched. Once you remove the conflict, then and only then will you be able to fix the Ethernet controller problem. The next thing you can do is to check the version of the Ethernet driver that you have. Usually, it is not a good idea to rely on the drivers provided on the CD, because most of the time, this will be an old version.