Hello. I had physically removed my ethernet card from the slot AND removed it from the Device Manager (Settings->Control Panel->System). When I restart, it detects the card again. Then I ran in Safe Mode, removed it, rebooted again in Safe Mode - it didn't detect it, then start in Normal Mode - it did detect it. So I jammed in another card, call it card B, hoping to "displace" the old card or something -and it detected it normally. So now I have 2 cards! - a real one and a "memmory" of an old one that doesn't want to go away. Is this a hardware problem? Any ideas? Thanks.
Status: the "device is working properly", no conflicts. Drivers are not listed in the add/remove program, (and I don't think it would be. Does it on yours? - Never heard of it). They are somewhere in C:\Windows\System..., <the names are listed, but I don't want to delete them, I don't think it's "healthy", I would rather uninstall them> I don't have an onboard LAN. I bought the card and the comp separately. And right now my other card is doing all the work - I'm here on the net after all. I also tried in the BIOS->CMOS Setup->PCI/PnP Enabling the reset of Plug And Play Configuration but to no avail. Just in case: the card is Realtek RTL8139(A); motherboard: QDI Advance 10B. Thanks for your advices so far.
Try this: Uninstall the card through the Device Manager. Then go to Start/Run, type "msconfig". Go to the "services" tab. Scroll down to the "Plug and Play" option and uncheck the box. Turn off your system, take off the card, reboot. Since Plug and Play is disabled through Windows, it shouldn't try to redetect anything at startup. However, I had to this once, and it screwed my sound card driver's up. A simple reinstall fixed the problem though. You can turn it back on after.
