I created a slic 2.1 rom for my K8V-MX ASUS Motherboard... it worked fine and Win7 activated, however now all a sudden im unable to get a IP from DHCP, i checked my MAC address for my onboard NIC and its scrambled, (EF:9F:E9:F7:F7) is it possible the Slic injection offset something regarding the NIC? Also does the slic string have to stay flashed for the activation to stay good, as in could you flash, activate windows then revert back to a original or is it checked for updates, etc. I ask because id like to flash my backup and see if the MAC address fixes but dont want to have to reinstall Windows. Thanks ahead of time for any and all help, im not even sure if this is possible but figured this would be the place to ask.
Windows checks the BIOS on every startup to verify the SLIC is present in the BIOS. As such, you cannot revert back to an unmodded BIOS and stay activated. It's very unlikely your BIOS has anything to do with the NIC's MAC address changing. Every NIC on the planet is supposed to have a unique MAC address and it's placed in the controller chip at the time of manufacturing. It's not left up to an integrator to assign it when systems are built. A NIC's real MAC address can be overriden by an entry in the registry. Possibly something has corrupted this entry in your case.
NIC MAC address consists of 48 bits, 12x Hex Char of 4 bits. First 6 Hex are OUI (Organizational Unique Identifier). you can search by IEEE. Next 6 hex should be unique. The MAC is a burnt in adress!! (meaning that nothing can change it.. or you should burn into ROM on NIC yourself..) Long shot..... What maybe happened.. The MAC address gets copied from ROM to RAM when you bootup. so if you adress the wrong offsets you could "change" the the MAC to a messed up string. I dont know what causes this behaveiour on your system but i think it can be messed up because its in RAM!. Investigate... investigate... ...Oh.. and take a cup of coffee while investigating...
what happens is that a lot of ISPs tend to hold your MAC address in their equipment. If you have a cable modem unplug it (from the wall and 'puter) and leave it for 5 mins while you go take a poo or eat something. Come back plug everything back up and it should be good. I know for instance FIOS takes FOREVER to readdress itself, RR is usually pretty quick once you unplug your equipment. I do not think flashing has done anything to your BIOS. To be sure though just back up your BIOS then reflash using the latest non-modded BIOS from your mobo manufacturer.
xtra info: go to your nic in win7 properties -> avanced -> Locally administered MAC Address. -> Should be no value. Do you have the messed up MAC in here? .... you can assign a different MAC (LAA) in OS. I had to find it first in win7 Yep its not a solaris box... hehehe
Thanks for everyone's help, i ended up looking up a close MAC address for asusTEK and applying it in through windows. It was messed up in the bios as well, i couldnt find the original MAC address printed or stickered on the board or anything... i could ping 127.0.0.1 with success before so i knew the drivers were working as soon as i changed the MAC address through properties it started working immediately. Thanks again for everyones help, i appreciate it.