A method and system for monitoring faults in network interface cards on networked computer systems or devices. The system includes a means for establishing an electrical connection to a computer network; a means for controlling data sent across the establishing means; a means for directly querying the status of the establishing means; and a means for tracking the status of the establishing means. The method includes steps for initializing data structures for tracking the status of one or more network interface cards to be monitored; initiating monitoring of the one or more network interface cards; ascertaining a configurable polling interval; determining if a shutdown condition has occurred; monitoring the status of the one or more network interface cards when a shutdown condition has not occurred; and clearing all resources when a shutdown condition has occurred.