Ipconfig fails in XP

[kunder@mninter.net]

An issue that you might come across related to the IBM T42 Series Laptops and Wireless Home Networks.

Basically, while trouble shooting a problem related to:
- A Wireless Network.
- A Wired Network where the data jack might not be active.
- A VPN connection problem.

You may notice strange behavior from the Laptop Network Card.


Symptoms of the problem:
#1 ipconfig command gives the following error.
Windows IP Configuration

An internal error occurred: A device attached to the system is not functioning.

Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services for further help.

Additional information: Unknown media status code.


#2 NIC card gets Automatically Disabled within 30 seconds of unplugging a live cable. You also cannot enable the NIC card again without pugging in a cable into a live data jack.
(Normally, it should only show "cable unplugged" or "Not connected". It should not be automatically disabling the NIC cards.)


Cause:
The Ethernet Network Card Driver may be too new. The Nic driver that is available through the Windows Update website appears to not be compatible with the IBM Thinkpad T42 Series laptops.
(It may be other laptops also, but it appears from the newsgroups, that most people having the same issue, all use the IBM T42 series laptops with WinXP-SP2)


Solution:
#1
- Use the WinXP Rollback Driver feature to rollback to an earlier version.
- Then do not install the Nic card driver that is available through Windows Update until their driver problem is corrected.

#2
- Download the newest version of the driver from IBM's website.
(IBM has an older version than the Microsoft site, but IBM is more likely to have fully tested any version they offer on their website.)