D600- MAC address changes to FF FF FF FF FF FF everytime I reboot!

Question

I recently purchased a used dell d600. My physical address is set to FF FF FF FF FF FF everytime i restart my laptop which prevents access to laptop through my school network. It has a Broadcom 570x Gigabit NIC. On every reboot I need to uninstall and reinstall the NIC in order see the real physical address and access the internet. This is becoming a pain. Someone pls help. I am using WinXP Pro and have tried reinstalling the drivers from both DELL as well as BROADCOM. I has been useless. I also have a DELL Truemobile 1300 wlan mini-pci card and a conexant modem.  I would be glad to get some help on this.

go2doug · Answer

All F's is the MAC broadcast address. First, try upgrading your PC's BIOS:     If that doesn't work, try uninstalling and reinstalling the TCP/IP protocol.   That is weird that your OS is not correctly reading the hardware address of your NIC, which is something that software cannot alter. If you've already tried uninstalling and reinstalling the latest driver for your NIC, I don't know what else to tell you. Are you positively sure that the driver you are installing is the right one for your NIC model? Good luck.

go2doug · Answer

@Sylver00 wrote:

Is there any way of forcing a MAC address in Win XP Pro?

It seems so. Have a look:

http://www.nthelp.com/NT6/change_mac_w2k.htm

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/23256/23256.html

http://hornyandconfused.com/content/view/176/117/

If none of these solutions work, then you should just get a new NIC card...

Sylver00 · Answer

Thanks for r reply. I upgraded the BIOS but the problem still persists. I have already formatted my hard drive twice in the last week and reinstalled a fresh copy of Win XP Pro and all new drivers so don't think re-installing TCP/IP again would help. I am quite sure I am using the right driver as the NIC is configured properly in the device manager - Broadcom 570x Gigabit Integrated Controller. Still need to re-install the driver after every restart in order to get the correct MAC address. Is there any way of forcing a MAC address in Win XP Pro?

Sylver00 · Answer

u r a GOD. This did work. No more running drivers over and over again. Thanks so much bud. I am just not satisfied having to go this way after spending so much. Thanks again.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

D600- MAC address changes to FF FF FF FF FF FF everytime I reboot!

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