When I switch the laptop on it says Realtek Fast Ethernet cable failure and says media cable test failed
When I switch the laptop on it says Realtek Fast Ethernet cable failure and says media cable test failed. (It says something along this anyways – let me know if it would be more helpful to send you the exact wording.)
Any ideas how I can fix this?
Also, it keeps switching off as soon as it boots up (on the rare occasion that it does). I presume this is due to overheating or a virus. If it is not overheating how could I resolve the virus issue without it actually turning on?
I think that there is nothing wrong with your Ethernet controller. Does’ your error message looks like this?
If yes, then it’s not an error. This message appears when a computer (laptop or desktop) trying to boot via the network card and you get this message because your laptop cannot find a server.
Usually a network boot goes after a hard drive boot in the boot priority menu. When you turn on the laptop, the laptop is looking for a bootable device and in most cases it would be the hard drive. If the hard drive is not found, it tries other options: boot from CD/DVD, Network card, floppy drive.
I think that your hard drive is failing and it should be replaced and re-imaged. Replacing the hard drive also might resolve the shut down problem.
You can test the hard drive with a Hitachi drive fitness test utility. If the laptop will shut down itself during the hard drive test, then most likely you also experience the laptop overheating problem.
September 26th, 2009 at 6:28 am
Hi,
I have the same problem as shown above, Fast ethernet failure ,,, What should I do? is replacement of hard drive is the only solution for it? please help to sort the problem.
April 26th, 2009 at 3:38 am
sorry one last thing, I also remember some people actually replacing the weird copper thingie hold the HEATSINK in place of the CPU and the actually HEATSINK and adding thermal paste and they have NEVER had a problem since!
I still get a blue BSOD every now and then about the kernel but for what its worth I havn’t got the media failure since I did the previous solution i posted!
April 26th, 2009 at 3:34 am
O yeah I know post before this sounds “stupid” and a buncha “bull” but trust me, this fix actually does work and this problem is very common in acer laptops. and this solution DOES work. look up CPU/AMD Acer Issues, or something along those lines. So please give a chance before you throw your laptop out the window!! happy troubleshooting!
if its under warrenty i suggest you send it to them because what they do is replace the whole mobo…
April 26th, 2009 at 3:29 am
You can’ take out the CMOS jesus I hate when techies assume its a laptop CMOS Battery! especially when these batteries on most acers are, SOLDERED onto the MOBO. I’ve done more research and my own personal work on this Problem way to much. The test cable for is different for various people, but for the most part the HD is still good as i got the same exact error message with any other HD I hooked up, Open up the laptop locate the CPU chip which is near the Memory, (also double check your memory is installed correctly) take them both out and plug them both in if you have too. after that you need unscrew 2 tiny screws that piece is holding down the HEATSINK, remove the wierd copper looking thingie as thats the best descrip. i can come up with for it! now you can simply remove the HEATSINK and look at you CPU, if its all dried up you need to put new thermal paste on it, once you do that put the screws back on, not so tightly but not too loose you dont want the mobo screwing up again because the screws were plugged in tight. If that doesn’t solve it, I would suggest you try to find another CPU to test out.
thx and goodluck!
contact me on youtube if you need too name “StevieKeyz”
October 20th, 2008 at 8:16 am
Hello folks,
I have a Toshiba Satellite M35X that was giving me SMART FAILURE messages concerning the hard drive (Hitachi Travelstar 60GB). It lasted for some time giving me the SMART FAILURE. Couldn’t do much on the machine because it wouldn’t write or save any information, but it is a secondary machine that I only needed for using the internet. Eventually, the machine just went out on me and wouldn’t start up at all. When I tried to turn it on, sometimes the power button would light up for a moment then just go dead again, sometimes it would get all the way to the Toshiba startup screen, then it would crash again.
I ended up replacing the hard drive with a 160GB Hitachi (HTS541616J9AT00). After replacing the new hard drive, I still get the exact same symptoms (i.e. the machine will not start up).
Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks!
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:19 am
I have a HP DV6130us which is giving me fits. It started out as XPMC crashing. Said that it had an unmountable boot device. I decided to try to load XP Pro Corp. (Legal copy BTW) After the files and drivers are loaded, it starts the windows install. It goes for just a couple of minutes and shuts down. I have done the memtest and all is good. I have ran 4 different hard drive tests and they all show good, although when I do the HP test out of BIOS, it gives me the error #2- 07 failure. I have pulled the HDD out and stuck it in a HP DV6715 and XP will load up correctly on that one.
I have also tried to load Vista ultimate on it and it is successful (Not a legal copy, so that is not an option)
At first, I thought the HDD was bad, but after running the drive tools and it cannot find errors and Vista is able to load perfect, it seems that it is operating correctly. I then thought that it could be overheating, not the case because Vista loads just fine and stayed up for 24 hours without shutting down. I also thought that the GPU was overheating, but apparently that was not the issue either.
I have two different disks for XP pro. Both will install on a different system, so the disks are not bad. One has SP2 slipstreamed without the SATA drivers. It won’t work unless I turn off the native SATA support in BIOS. After disabling that, XP will attempt to load until the install page. The other disc, I have SP3 slipstreamed with SATA drivers embedded. I do not have to disable the SATA support for this disc to work. It makes it to the reboot and then trys to install and shuts down.
When Vista is installing, it reboots several times just like it is supposed to. It attempts to get online and get updates until Microsoft sees that it is an invalid copy. Everything functions in Vista. I can play music, games, movies, surf the internet.
This is very frustrating. I have spent 3 days surfing the net trying to see if anyone else has had an issue like this but to no avail. I have found some very useful info here and thought that this might be the best place to ask for help.
Thank you so much in advance.
September 21st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
I read a lot on the internet that I have to change in the bios and the problem I have is that it is not letting me change. I can change the order but I cant change the PXE boot. Also this usually just happends when i open it the first time. once it gets warmed up then i can restart or turn it off and it would be good again. please help me on how to change the bios for the toshiba satellite a65-s1064. thank you
August 30th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Hey, I’ve also got an Acer Aspire 5100 series with this exact same problem. I’ve already replaced the hard drive but it’s still happening!
I’ve checked the boot order as directed and everything else but without any joy. Until today it would boot up after a few tries but now it’s not having any of it!
Please help!
Thanks in advance.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:23 am
hi, i have a dell notebook and lately its been acting up. for example my itunes doesnt work anymore, mozilla would open but then it would shut down, and all my other programs would freeze and i would keep getting pop ups from different programs saying theres something wrong with it. and when i would restart the computer i’d get a black screen sometimes. i tried to reboot my computer but a black screen came up and i got nothing but FAILED. is my computer completely done???
July 28th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Hello,
I have an acer aspire 5100 and am having a lot of the same issues as everyone else. i have the fast ethernet controller media failure screen, and just got the “blue screen of death”. my computer wouldnt turn on for awhile and i got it fixed, and then it kept on coming back to that screen again, but it will turn on with ctrl alt del. however then it will work fine for a week or so, and then it will do it again. i have no idea what to do, and now everyone is talking bad things about sending it in to acer. any ideas? please please help me!!!!
July 18th, 2008 at 4:48 am
hi i have a hp omnibook 6100 i cant even get into bios by pressing f2 or escape it says card reader not present your computer will shut down??? please help anyone!!! thanks
July 18th, 2008 at 4:48 am
hi i have a hp omnibook 6100 i cant even get into bios by pressing f2 or escape it says card reader not present your computer will shut down??? please help anyone!!!
June 27th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I’m going under the assumption that it is a hard disk controller error. If that’s the case, the controller is attached to the motherboard.
It’s not worth a thing if the motherboard is bad. You can get a new laptop cheaper than replacing the motherboard . . .
June 27th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Hi I left a message about my acer 5102 and the BSOD back in nov of 2007(scroll up to see it) Dave has the exact same problem with the exact same comp as I do. Any idea how to fix it? I bought a mac and couldn’t be happier, no more windows problem but i still would like to be able to use my acer as well when needed. Plus I can pass it down to my child. Please respond.
Thanks!
June 26th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Daniel,
Here’s my guess.
I believe on this model you cannot access the BIOS setup menu normal way by pressing Esc, or F1, or F2, etc…
You can access the BIOS and set the DVD drive as the first bootable device through the Toshiba utility in Windows, but for that you have to be load Windows first.
OK, here’s what you can try.
1. Download this utility, create a bootable floppy drive and boot the laptop from the floppy. This will allow you to bypass NTLDR on the hard drive.
2. If you still have system files on the hard drive you should be able to load Windows.
3. Access the boot order through the Toshiba utility and set the DVD drive as the first bootable device.
4. Now you can restart the laptop from the recovery disc and reinstall the operating system.
Let me know how it works for you.
June 26th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I’m trying to repair my friends laptop. When I turn the power on it comes up to an NT loader error, then when I remove the HDD it gets an error of Intel boot agent similar to this.
PXE – E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE – M0F: Exiting Intel Boot Agent
I’ve tried everything I could think of to enter the bios but no luck. I’ve updated the bios, 3x using an external floppy, and booting to that, still nothing. Tried using IBAUTIL thinking it was something dealing with network boot, still can’t get into the bios.
Every time I updated the bios it went through fine, I can boot to external floopy using the f12 key, but not to a cd.
I’ve been at this for a full day now and am at wits end. Any ideas???
Oh yeah, this is a Toshiba Satellite 5005-S504
May 31st, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I also have an Acer Aspire 5102 laptop. It’s been a brick of a laptop ever since I got it. Vista Capable, eh?! Yeah
right! where do I sign up for the class action suit?
It started as a random error where my pc would shut off with no warning. It then evolved into a BSOD.
The main error is 0×000000f4. After I reboot, I get the 200 fixed hard disk 0 failed error. If I click F1 to go
past that error, I the network load (realtek fast ethernet media test failed) error.
It appears to me to be a controller error. I’ve used memtest86, chkdsk and even did an OS reload to go from Vista back to XP. Though the laptop was lightning fast compared to when it had Vista on it, the error still came back.
My only option seems to be to contact my credit card company for their “double warranty” insurance. I did it once already thinking it was the memory. Now I’ll have to go back to the well to tell them that $150 isn’t going to cut it!
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Hi, i have the very same problem as the first person who posted in the category, i talked to a professional who works on these about this and he said i needed to take out my CMOS and place it back in, i think thats the right thing to do, in that case where is it? i’ve looks at hundreds of sites regarding this issue and i still have the slightest clue, i have a toshiba satellite a65-s1065, any suggestions from anyone would be appreciated
Many Thanks
March 29th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Get an error: 0200 Failure fixed disk 0
I repeatedly got this error…
I found that for me it was just a loose hard drive…they (Acer) have a terrible system to keep them in place…any time the laptop was moved or placed on its side, the hd would slowly move out of its socket. So I pushed the hd back into it’s slot, then put in a plastic ‘wedge’ (but not covering the vents)and haven’t had a problem since.
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:18 am
i have acer aspire 5100,i have had this laptop for over a year now. but a couple of weeks back as i was shutting it down it started frezzing and going really slow as it was shuting down it stopped as it was say”logging off”
when ever i try to start the laptop the acer background comes up with a load bar at the bottom witch fills about 1/3 of the way the makes 2 loud beeps and that screen shows says somthing about “Realtek Fast Ethernet cable failure and says media cable test failed” and this screen just keeps loading its self
December 26th, 2007 at 8:22 am
I own a NEC Versa E680.
It was on power supply without battery.
The power supply was accidentally plugged out.
Once I restarted the laptop, the screen states
’safe mode’
’safe mode with networking’
’safe mode with command prompt’
‘last known configuration’
’start windows normally’.
I clicked all of them but it won’t log on to windows.
What should I do?