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Ethernet Problem

P

Pantomimehorse

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 5, 2012
22
0
London
I have a 2006 Mac Pro that has been working great ever since I bought it used nearly a year ago, but recently I have started to get a strange problem with the ethernet.

I seems randomly the ethernet will either work or wont when I boot up or come out of sleep mode, when I go into settings it says nothing is plugged in and its becoming really frustrating.

I did a format and reinstall of Lion but Im still getting the issue.

The onyl way I have found that seems to solve it ( or may just be coincidence ) is when I unplug the mac for an hour or so then plug it back in and boot up generally it will work ok.

Anyone have any ideas what is causing this?
 
I know it's obvious, but you have tried swapping out for a new cable? I've seen them get flaky.
 
Try another cable, reset the SMC, clean the Ethrnet plug and input...
And if all that fails you pretty much screwed.
 
Pantomimehorse said:
I have a 2006 Mac Pro that has been working great ever since I bought it used nearly a year ago, but recently I have started to get a strange problem with the ethernet.

I seems randomly the ethernet will either work or wont when I boot up or come out of sleep mode, when I go into settings it says nothing is plugged in and its becoming really frustrating.

I did a format and reinstall of Lion but Im still getting the issue.

The onyl way I have found that seems to solve it ( or may just be coincidence ) is when I unplug the mac for an hour or so then plug it back in and boot up generally it will work ok.

Anyone have any ideas what is causing this?
Click to expand...

We had an issue recently where one of our Mac Pros at the office (with an aggregated link - IE bonded GbE ports) wasn't working at all. Turns out the switch just needed a reboot; this is a 24-port managed 3com switch that had a two year uptime until that point. So you might also want to check equipment down the line.

But I have to agree that cable flakiness should be first suspect.
 
thanks for your replies,

I dont think its the router as I have two other computers plugged into it and they work fine, one a pc the other a Mac Mini , I guess it could be the cable but I don't think it is, when it wasn't working at first I brought my Mac Book and plugged it in and it worked fine straight away.

I think Im going to swap the Mini for the pro and see if I have anymore issues over a week, then I can rule out whether or not its the cable.

----------

oh and the reason I cant just swap out the cable is the cable is a 100m cable that has been tacked right round the house to my office in the garden so Id rather not have to do that again !!
 
100m that is a fair way. Even more reason to start with a shorter cable first.your router/mac Ethernet port might not be giving enough power to sustain this distance
 
interesting, would lack of power potentially be an intermittent thing? as like I said sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt
 
a small update, since Friday I have switched out the Mac Pro for my Mac Mini and the problem hasnt come back which leads me to believe its a problem with the Mac Pro, what the problem is however Ive no idea!

I was thinking of trying one of those Ethernet to USB converters to see if its an issue with Ethernet port, does anyone know if they will work on a mac?
 
Might be the mac mini has a few more watts of power than the MBP. Hence it's able to cope with your cable degradation. Does the MBP work when plugged into another shorter cable?
 
ah good point I will check that out before I buy the adaptor, I havent had a chance to set the Pro up in the other room yet but will do it this weekend and see what happens
 
Pantomimehorse said:
I was thinking of trying one of those Ethernet to USB converters to see if its an issue with Ethernet port, does anyone know if they will work on a mac?
Click to expand...
Apple makes one, $20. But does your computer have a second Ethernet port you can try?
 
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