Hi Len; And thanks for your input. Yes, just today I tested from connector PCB point to connector PCB point with the wire connected to ensure the cable et al was in good order. Also, I did use TCP/IP protocols today, and used "net diag" in a DOS window as per someone else's suggestion. I set one system as the diagnostic server, and then ran "net diag" on the other system. No luck. I also tried it the other way. Is this the manner in which you were suggesting I ping one IP number to the other? I get the impression you might have another suggestion. I do live in what might be considered the wilds; I have moose, wolves, deer and bears living all around my house in Northern Ontario. However, I do live only half a hour from the nearest town and if I wait, the people I got these cards from will sooner or later have another two I can try. I had hoped to avoid that, but if need be... It took me a minute, but I did realize that Robert Prickett was giving me the same diagram back, only reversed compared to my own. I had a detailed diagram provided by another list member, so I realized that Robert, and my cable, were both correct. Thanks again. Bill Len Warner wrote: > > And thanks to everyone who replied. Although my problem still > >exists, I have learned along the way and have possibly narrowed the > >range of possibilities. However, I am still stumped. > > I have <enormous snip> > > Ok, you've tried everything, > --- so the problem must be something else :-) > > Here are some off-the-wall ideas: > > * Have you probed the cable end-to-end with an ohmmeter or > continuity checker in case the contacts have crimped badly? > > * Have you looked into the NIC RJ45 sockets to make sure those > little contact springs are lined up correctly and not bent? > (You might check the continuity to the PCB traces too, in case > someone has given those secondhand cards a tough time.) > > * Have you tried configuring both cards to TCP/IP and attempted > to PING one's IP number from the other machine? That should > bypass all that inscrutable Win95 networking stuff. > > * Have you tried borrowing a pair of working cards and cable > from someone else (assuming you don't live in the wilds)? > When I had a Novell protocol problem on not-quite-PC-clone > workstations with missing documentation, I didn't solve it > until I got a pair of identical cards that had a diagnostic > which exchanged and counted packets: then I knew it wasn't > a hardware interconnect problem. > > By the way, Bill Lee and Robert Prickett are arguing about > _the_same_ cable connections: > > Bill has described the cable with the RJ45 connector > "Clip to bottom, Wire to right", whereas Robert uses > the official numbering, which corresponds to > "Clip to bottom, Wire to LEFT" > (numbering from top to bottom of view in both cases). > > Since both Bill and Robert show both ends of the cable > this makes no difference to the connection routing. > > The Hardware Book page HWB\co_Ethernet10BaseT.html has > a pretty picture of a RJ45 with Robert's numbering. > > Len Warner <[log in to unmask]> WWW Pager http://wwp.mirabilis.com/10120933