Ethernet connection stopps working...

[Jesusfrk611]

Completely random, the ethernet connection just stops working. I've tried different cables, ran it straight to the router (usually connected to a switch) and connected straight to the modem. Nothing works. I just sits there and tries to connect over and over again. I've had a problem with this computer recently where the connection just dropped out of nowhere, but I ran the troubleshooter and it fixed it. Now the troubleshooter is saying a cable is broke or disconnected. I restarted the computer and reinstalled the ethernet driver. Not sure what else to do or why it would just randomly drop out like that. It stopped working in the middle of me watching something on Netflix. It was working fine when I started it. My 2 other wired computers and my 2 wireless computers are working fine. The only thing I can think it would be is that the onboard ethernet just died... The motherboard is only 5-6 months old...

 

[Celegorm]

In rare cases, I have seen viruses do this. Boot from a live Linux CD (hopefully it's drivers will work for your Ethernet) and see how that works. We should be able to eliminate all hardware or all software as the cause.

 

[jmacavali]

If you have any extra NIC's laying around through it in and try that. It's always my first step. You can usually pick one up for $10.
Tried a new cable?

celegorm's method would work too.

 

[Jesusfrk611]

I was actually just about to use an Ubuntu Live CD to check it. The first thing I would have tried is a PCI NIC card if I had any. I don't have much computer stuff anymore like I used to. I was going to go to the computer store to pick a card up, but they haven't opened for the day yet. As I mentioned in my first post, I tried several different cables and nothing worked. My switch doesn't register that computer as plugged in. I shut it down last night and turned it back on today to the same thing.

I also tried using either one of the 2 drivers ASUS had on their site for the ethernet. Neither worked after uninstalling the previous one.

EDIT:
In Ubuntu it still doesn't work. I'm going to pick up a PCI card when I get to the store and hopefully that works...

I installed a new PCI NIC card. It fixed the issue...however now that I have that installed neither Firefox nor Internet Explorer will open. All other EXE files seem to open fine. I ran an AVG scan with no results, hijackthis no results. I'm running malware bytes now with nothing so far. Seems I have got something, but for some reason it only stopped me from opening web browsers. It will pretend it's opening with the little loading ring, then the ring goes away and the program remains unopened. I opened msconfig but the only thing in startup is AVG.