I have 2 RIO Receivers. One of them is working fine but the second one is giving me problems. I have them both hooked up to my router with the original ARM software running on the server. Neither RIO is hacked.

When the RIO is powered off the LINK LED on the back is solid green and so is the link light on the router. But when I power up the RIO the LINK LED on the RIO and router go out. If I let it go all the way through trying to configure itself I get the 169.xxx.xxx.xxx address. Every once in a while I can cycle it and get the LINK LED to stay on while the RIO is powering up. When that happens I get an IP address from my router (eg 192.168.1.126) but ARM doesn't see it.

To me it seems like the firmware may be messed up because my other RIO's LINK LED stays on all the time. Is there a way to reset the RIO to the factory default state without any programming? I am using WinXP and no nothing about Linux or Unix so that isn't an option.

Any hints or ideas on how to help?

The Rio Receivers download fresh firmware from the server whenever they get power. So I don't think it's the firmware.

It's more likely something wrong at the network hardware level. Since you have one working receiver, you're in a good position to be able to diagnose the source of the problem. Try swapping cables and ports and locations and such.

Swapped RIOs and same problem exists. I isolated the problem to the one RIO. If the firmeware is messed up could it be possible that the RIO doesn't know how to get the latest firmware from the server when it boots up? I read on these forums that the receiver downloads the receiver.arf when it boot up. I also tried reinstalling ARM to replace the receiver.arf an undamaged version if in case it is the receiver.arf file but I don't think it is since the other RIO works just fine.

You shouldn't have been able to damage the firmware in the Receiver as it never changes. The built in firmware is just used to load the receiver.arf file into RAM. It never overwrites anything in flash.

They are both the original RIO receivers. They aren't the DELL's. I tried a 10base 10 hub in between the router and RIO and get the exact same results.

It's starting to sound like something has gone kerplooey with the network hardware interface on that receiver.

If I can get the RIO to get an address from the server and ping it would that rule out the Networking Hardware in the RIO? Does the RIO return pings?

If you could get a ping consistently without any failures, then yes it would rule out ethernet hardware troubles. Your original description says that doesn't happen though, you only sometimes get an IP.

There are two NICs on the Rio Receiver. If you suspect a problem with the
ethernet port, have you tried using the HPNA phone-line networking port instead?
(You'd need to install the HPNA card in your PC to try this).
Good luck!

I vaguely remember experiencing something like this when I had more than one receiver (or other device) being allocated the same ip adress via DHCP. Just thought I'd mention it in case you have your own DHCP server (in addition to the one built into the ARM software).

Cheers
Paul

That one would be easy to test. Simply plug one of the receivers in, instead of both of them. But I don't think that's what's happening because he also says he isn't getting a link light when the receiver is in its failure state. If the DHCP were assigned wrong, he'd still get a link light.

I don't have a HPNA card to test with and don't really want to send HPNA on my filtered DSL line.

I just tried this out.

If I hit the power button really fast like ten or twenty times I can sometimes get it to boot up with the LINK LED solid green. It gets an IP address from my router but it always give me the "LOOKING FOR MUSIC SERVER" message on the display. It never finds the music server and times out with the IP address that it received from the router. If I ping that IP address from a PC connected to the same network I get a response back from the RIO. I think the RIO is going nutty (technical term).

Pressing the power button a few times quickly is the same as plugging and unplugging the player, so there's nothing really new in that information.

Although, since that behavior of the power button is coded into the protected boot firmware, it is another indication that the problem doesn't lie in the firmware.

Have you checked to make sure it isn't something silly like a bent pin on the ethernet port? Have you dismantled the player and looked for broken solder joints around the ethernet port?

Checked everything I could. I think it is time to take a baseball bat to it.