Change H/W details in Conductor NT s/ware v6 & system reverts back to physical Ethernet Address for old Net card

Hi, We have an ageing DCS system and have the following problem...

We purchased a spare ECCP Dual Network Controller card (Model no: 686B811U01) in case another failed for our 3 x server DCS system on site.
When fitting this card into a spare working PC (which is running a clone of the original hard disk and has all drivers added etc) and connecting it up to our system, from a different connected Server PC, we changed the Physical Address to match the same as the new card and keep the IP Address the same and save the values within Conductor NT.
We then boot the spare PC and the software runs but we don't have a live connection (Warning triangle on the graphics). From the Conductor NT software on the spare PC, we log in and the original Physical settings for the card are still showing, so these are changed to match the new card and saved.

We reboot the Spare PC and see the same warning triangle on the graphics as the system is not properly connected is showing.
Again, on the spare PC we check the IP Address and Physical Address of the card and the original Physical Address has returned.

We have tried un-installing the original card (which was a hidden device) from within Windows to see if the PC would see the new card.
Windows reports the new card is working correctly.

Original Network settings were: 40.0.5.2 for the IP Address and 00-40-C3-01-30-04 for the Physical Address (which keeps returning)
New Network settings are: 40.0.5.2 for the IP Address and 00-40-C3-01-4E-AA

How do I get the PC to boot up with the matching Physical Address of the new ECCP card as I can't seem to find out where that value is stored?

I've hunted through the Windows registry and file system in the ABB directory to no avail.
Please can you help?
Thanks in advance!

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andrew.woodhouse Rank: 3382

Asked 11 months ago

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The mac adress is stored in the card itself. Sometimes you can do mac adress spoofing in the driver, but most of the times it is not possible for a good reason: the mac adress has to be unique.

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by andrew.woodhouse Rank: 3382 on 11/27/2019 5:56:58 AM | Like (0) | Report

Hi, yes the MAC address of the newer replacement card is reported as being 00-40-C3-01-4E-AA and the original card was 00-40-C3-01-30-04. The only card in the spare PC has the 00-40-C3-01-4E-AA address and you can change this value when using a different Server connection in the Conductor NT software and that server remembers the change.

When I boot the spare PC (which must have the original card MAC Address details stored in it somewhere, as the hard disk was ghosted from another PC that had that the card installed, the MAC address 00-40-C3-01-30-04 returns. I thought I'd deleted registry settings and uninstalled the original card with that MAC address, then installed the card with the MAC address 00-40-C3-01-4E-AA. - Windows XP reports this card as working correctly.

I understand the MAC address is unique to the card and that's fine but you must be able to change it in the Conductor software (as it appears you can) otherwise, if a card fails, you could never replace it with another one - game over!

To me, something is changing the "preferred" hardware card address before it can connect to the network as we have a triangle displayed in the graphics of the Conductor NT software as it cannot connect to the database to update the graphical content to match what is happening on the plant.
We don't have the software at hand to do a clean install (as far as I know), so was wondering, where this "preferred" network card with the MAC address of 00-40-C3-01-30-04 is being pulled from. I wonder if I change the Hardware profile in WIndows to prompt me rather than take the first device it thinks it has may rectify the issue?

Sorry for the long-winded description but I think it is needed to give you the "full" picture.
Thanks again!