BleepingComputer.com: Network error message

I keep getting a pop-up balloon saying "Local Area Connection: A network cable is unplugged."

I have two network connections. One for a bluetooth and the other from my wireless router to my Main PC. I disabled the bluetooth connection. I still get the error message on the main connection. It only started doing this after I installed SP3 on my PC (which runs XP Home). I have two other machines on my wireless home network. One runs XP Home SP2, the other runs Vista SP1. No trouble with either of those machines. Only my Desktop PC running XP Home SP3 is giving the error message.

I checked and installed what was said to be the lastest network driver for my Dell 4450 Machine from their site. I have disabled the second network connection (for a bluetooth).

Any suggestions?

You probably have a NIC for cat5 cable as well.

If you have no intentions of using the wired connection then you can right click on the icon, should look like 2 computer montiors, and select disable.

Hi ThunderZ,

I use the wired connection to my main PC from the wireless router. So, no, I can't disable that connection. I did disable the bluetooth connection, however.

Then if a cable is plugged in I`m not sure why you are getting that message.

I must admit I`m a bit confused on you set up.

It's a standard setup. I have DSL from Verizon. The DSL is plugged into the wireless router/modem From there I run an ethernet cable to my Desktop PC. I have two laptops in other parts of my home which access the internet through the "wireless" network setup on my Desktop PC.

Do you actually lose connection? Does it happen when you are doing something specific? Does it happen after a certain amount of time?

Hi Cave Dweller,

I don't seem to be affected as far as packet losses or speed. I have checked both of those. My packet losses were zero and my speed was good for DSL. So no, I don't lose connectivity. But, the error balloon that keeps popping up is very irritating, to say the least.

I doubt this is an actual network problem. I feel it is more associated with the download of SP3 for my XP machine. But, I just don't know. I do know I want to stop the balloon from popping up.

I believe the problem is solved. Microsoft Article ID: 910389 had some advice that seemed to fix the problem http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910389 . I assume that SP3 must have changed my network adaptor connection to "automatically select" for the speed.

The article suggested that I manually set the speed by going through the list of available speeds. For me, this was 10Mbps/Full Duplex. Other speeds didn't stop the error message popup, but this one did.

Now my eyes are no longer drawn to the popup each time I am browsing the web.

Thank you to all that viewed and offered advice.

That is strange because that is changing your network card. I'm not sure what that has to do with SP3. If you are OK with lowering your speed to 10Mbs from 100Mbs then happy surfing. I would uninstall the driver and delete the NIC from device manager, then do a fresh install. Nothing lost cause you know how to fix it. Simply installing the new driver over the old sometimes doesn't cut it. That's just me.

Hi CaveDweller,

After reading your post, I decided to try what you said. I deleted the NIC and uninstalled the driver. Then I did a restart, and after restarting installed the lastest driver I had from Dell for my computer.

The popup came back. So, I ended up doing what I did before and that took care of it. I had googled my problem before and someone else experienced a similar problem. They had just downloaded SP3 for XP. They also did an update for JAVA that day. I might have done the update for JAVA as well, I can't remember.

This might not be the best fix, but it is the only one that has been offered that actually works so far. It's better than the constant popup, as that gets very irritating.

If you come up with anything that might be better, I would happy to try it. Thanks for you efforts so far.

lol everything I read on the net has the same answers as your fix: fix the symptom but not what is causing it.

And I saw post for XP with Sp2 and 3.

The best work-around I saw was: Right click your Local Area connection -> click Properties -> take the check mark out of "Notify me when...." and it won't pop up any more. There is little use in the icon either, if you are connected to a LAN, cause the LAN speed is what it will always show.

You could try a PCI NIC. But if you aren't actually losing connection, I wouldn't worry about it. But it is strange and if I had to guess its prolly something silly causing it.

I already tried to stop the notifications. It doesn't work.

I love how Microsoft comes up with their "fixes". As you said, not really a fix.