Network cable NOT detected

[harshalizee]

hello,
All of a sudden today when I booted up my computer, my internet connection on the computer was down. Though the cable has not been moved, the PC fails to detect it.
The PC is on a LAN through a router, all other PCs on the network works fine,except this one.
Here is a list of things I already tried :

1. I thought it was a problem with the cable, but when I checked it on another computer, it was fine.
2. Pinging seem to have no effect.
3. I even re-installed the NIC driver, but no change.
4. I just noticed that even though the NIC driver is installed, there is no 'Network Adapters' section in the Device manager.

I had absolutely no problem for over a year on this network, and suddenly this happens. I haven't installed any new app or software recently.
Can anyone please help me?!!?

 

[Hefemeister]

Is this onboard or an expansion card for your NIC?
If it is an expansion card, reseat the card.
If it is onboard what motherboard do you have?

It is possible that it has stopped working as you have done very good at all of the simple troubleshooting.

 

[harshalizee]

Is this onboard or an expansion card for your NIC?
If it is an expansion card, reseat the card.
If it is onboard what motherboard do you have?

It's onboard. my mobo is BIOSTAR TP35D2-A7. It has Intel P35/CH9 chipset. My NIC btw is a Gigabyte NIC onboard card.

It is possible that it has stopped working as you have done very good at all of the simple troubleshooting.

That is what I thought at first, but the lights on the back are on as if everything is working properly.

Do you need any more info ?

 

[Hefemeister]

Lights do not mean it is working. What worries me is the lack of anything showing up for it in device manager. It should show up as not working or unknown device.

Any unknown devices in device manager?

My guess is you also get nothing for an ipconfig command in dos as it thinks their is now network device. Correct?

 

[harshalizee]

Yup! ipconfig shows nothing.And no unknown devices also. Does this mean its dead?

 

[Hefemeister]

With all of the test you have performed I would say yes.

time for a pci network card.

 

[harshalizee]

With all of the test you have performed I would say yes.

time for a pci network card.

So, this means i have to get an external NIC?
I'm sorry if this question sounds dumb, I'm not too well versed in network cards, but when you say 'pci network card' , does this go into the PCI slot?! If so which one, I have four on my mobo.

 

[Hefemeister]

any one of your open pci slots. Something like this would work nicely.
Newegg.com - D-Link DGE-530T 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI Gigabit Desktop Adapter 1 x RJ45 - Network Interface Cards

 

[harshalizee]

GOT IT TO WORK!!!!

Since I thought my NIC had died, I was just tinkering around with both hardware and software. Performed a system restore and it didn't do any good. Then, I was just going through the BIOS, I noticed that 'On-Board LAN was disabled. Enabled it and it was alive!! I'm still not sure why this had happened all of a sudden, I never messed around with the BIOS before. So, I thought I'd post this so others with similar problems can solve theirs!
Also, Hefemeister, thanks a lot for taking the time out to help me. I really appreciate the quick response. Thanks Again!

 

[Hefemeister]

That is strange. How would it get disabled in bios?

Anyways nice catch. Being disabled in bios would have the same appearance as a dead NIC card but not something that happens often at all.

Only thing I can think of is if disabled is the default setting and somehow it got reset ie dead cmos battery.
But, that does not make sense either.