[Ti] Ethernet Connection Problem

[Kynan Shook]

Well, the first thing you should do, of course, is to check your  
cable and other connections.  Find a location with a known-good  
Ethernet cable (don't forget that whatever is on the other end of  
your cable might be causing the problems - just swap your computer  
with a working computer) and test it there.

Next thing to check is the Network preference pane - see what it says  
about the Ethernet port in the Network Status view that comes up:  
what color is the dot next to Ethernet, and what does it say?  Common  
things are that the cable is not plugged in, that the cable is  
connected but there is no IP address, or that it is currently active  
and has an IP address.

One thing I used to see occasionally when I worked at an Apple  
Authorized Service Provider is that the contacts inside a well-used  
Ethernet port can get bent too far down.  If you look directly inside  
the port, you will see a row of 8 contacts sticking up.  Ideally, all  
8 should be sticking up the same height.  If they're not, it's  
possible that a few of them were bent by while inserting and removing  
plugs, something that can happen after a few years.  You might be  
able to temporarily fix the problem by holding the cable in one  
direction or another to force contact with all the pins.  For a more  
permanent solution, if the computer is covered by AppleCare, that's  
your best bet - give Apple a call and they'll fix you up.  If you  
don't have AppleCare, the first thing you can try is to use some sort  
of tool like a dental pick to very carefully bend the contacts back  
up.  However, they're very thin and easily breakable.

If that doesn't work, or if you break something while doing it,  
getting it repaired would probably cost slightly more than purchasing  
an Airport card and one (or a couple) cheap wireless access points.   
Repairs are generally around $300.  It might be easier (depending on  
how many different places you regularly use Ethernet at) to go  
entirely wireless.


Amara Lynn Graps <Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it> writes:
> This afternoon, suddenly (changing nothing on my
> computer), the Ethernet port is not functioning properly. I worked
> with the sys admin people trying a number of tests since I thought
> it was a problem with the local area network. The System Preferences
> Built-In Ethernet configuration are correct because the Sys Admin
> people can 'see' packets from my computer, that is, they can see
> when I turn it on, and when I ping the router or other computers.
>
> However, on my end, nothing returns when I try to ping, or connect
> to the Ethernet in any way. Pinging always returns a 100% packet
> loss; other ways I tried to connect to the Internet via ssh, ftp,
> http etc. all find 'no nodename' (even though I have the proper
> DNS server IP set in the Network Manual Setup).