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Has my ethernet card just stopped working?

S

Sal Collaziano

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 7, 2007
331
24
Royal Palm Beach, FL
I'm always on WiFi - even when I don't need to be. I noticed this, and wanted to change that to get the fastest transfer speed while I'm at my desk (and plugged in). So I disconnected Airport and I get the following message:

Cable unplugged
The cable for Built-in Ethernet is not plugged in.

I get this even with the cable plugged directly into the model. My wife's MB works just fine. Does this sound as if my Ethernet card died?
 
I assume you tried the cable with your wife's MB? is your router configured to give you an IP address to your laptop's MAC address?
 
Yes, I plugged the ethernet cable directly into my wife MB and it worked fine. I'm not quite sure how to configure my router to give an IP address to my MBP.. How do I do that?

iShater said:
I assume you tried the cable with your wife's MB? is your router configured to give you an IP address to your laptop's MAC address?
Click to expand...
 
Your router typically has an admin page that you can connect to, it might be 192.x.x.1 or something like that, whatever IP address it dishes out to your machine, except 1 at the end.

Connect both laptops to the router via ethernet, and use the wife's MB to connect to the admin console. See if there is something in there to show you connected computers, and if it sees your laptop.
 
I've had this problem happen to my 1st Gen Macbook 2 weeks ago.
I didn't have a warranty so they told me it would cost $895 to fix it.
Plus Labor.
Plus Tax.

I bought a Macbook Pro instead.
 
Okay. So I assume my ethernet card is not working for whatever reason. Is this something that the Apple Store normally needs to KEEP my computer in order to fix? I really can't afford to lose my computer for any more than a few hours right now...
 
Sal Collaziano said:
Okay. So I assume my ethernet card is not working for whatever reason. Is this something that the Apple Store normally needs to KEEP my computer in order to fix? I really can't afford to lose my computer for any more than a few hours right now...
Click to expand...

Yes they need to keep it for 5-7 days to fix it.
 
Try creating a new Location instead of using Automatic in Network Preferences.

i worked on a mac mini that had the same problem.
 
When I try creating a new location, I get the following message:

"The cable for Ethernet is not plugged in."

Is this what happened to you? And did you proceed and eventually get it working?

Thank you...

e12a said:
Try creating a new Location instead of using Automatic in Network Preferences.

i worked on a mac mini that had the same problem.
Click to expand...
 
well it could just be a possibility...

we did a logic board replacement on a mac mini, the customer brought it back with the ethernet problem. Created a new location and all was well. For some reason the automatic location did not work.

the logic board could very well be bad. We've done several macbooks with bad ethernet ports.
 
This is so strange.. I created a new location like you mentioned. However, I didn't finish it because I saw that error message. I gave up. I restarted - but the new non-working location was still there. Next, I selected "Automatic" from the dropdown menu - and all is working well again.. Ghost in the machine?

e12a said:
well it could just be a possibility...

we did a logic board replacement on a mac mini, the customer brought it back with the ethernet problem. Created a new location and all was well. For some reason the automatic location did not work.

the logic board could very well be bad. We've done several macbooks with bad ethernet ports.
Click to expand...
 
hm glad you got it working.

seems like there's a bug in the network preference pane. Hopefully the next update will fix it.
 
huh?

You mean you did all this freaking out and posting without restarting first?
 
e12a said:
hm glad you got it working.

seems like there's a bug in the network preference pane. Hopefully the next update will fix it.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I guess a few others have been through this as well......

26139 said:
You mean you did all this freaking out and posting without restarting first?
Click to expand...

No.. That's not the case.. I've been using computers since the mid 80s. I'm not "one of those"... Thanks for your input.
 
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