Ethernet stopped working, Wifi OK

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Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Ethernet stopped working, Wifi OK

alisam

837 posts

Ultimate Geek

#224081 1-Nov-2017 19:28

My recollection is that I went out for 3-4 hours (today), came back and the Ethernet connection is no longer working. Wifi is OK.

I have an HP ProBook G1, running W10 Professional (and is up-to-date).

I have tried the W10 Troubleshooting, including some of these.

I don't know the name of the network adapter.

I have a NUC running W10 Home, in the same room. Tried switching ports on a D-Link 4 port powerline. The NUC continued to work.

Also shutdown, the HP, NUC and NAS and switched off the D-Link Powerline. No change.

Tried an Acronis System Image Restore to last nights backup, but still no joy.

I don't know what to do next.

Device Manager shows:

PC: Dell Inspiron 16 5640 (Windows 11 Home), Dell Inspiron 7591 2n1 (Windows 11 Pro), HP ProBook 470G1 (Windows 10 Pro), Intel NUC7I5BNH (Zorin)
Net: Grandstream 1 x GWN7062 Router, 1 x GWN7665 Access Point
Storage: Synology DS216play NAS, 2 x 6TB
Media: 3 x Amazon FireTV. Echo, Dot, Spot
TV: 2 x Samsung H6400 55" LED TV, Panasonic TH-P50G10Z 50" Plasma TV
Mobile: Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
Wearable: Gear S3 Frontier

dan

1134 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#1893813 1-Nov-2017 20:10

Download/Run the HP Support Assistant to make sure all drivers / firmware is a good first step.

scuwp

3888 posts

Uber Geek

#1893864 1-Nov-2017 21:01

Perhaps obvious, but have you tried another cable?

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

alisam

837 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1893866 1-Nov-2017 21:06

scuwp: Perhaps obvious, but have you tried another cable?

Yes I have (and I know that one is OK).

alisam

837 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1893868 1-Nov-2017 21:13

dan:

Download/Run the HP Support Assistant to make sure all drivers / firmware is a good first step.

I have that running. Everything is up to date.

Just looked again and I found I installed 'Realtek Ethernet Controller Driver' on 10/10/2017 (SP78407).

Tried to re-install and get

Unfortunately, it doesn't show up in Device Manager.

freakngeek

356 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1893904 1-Nov-2017 21:37

Is there a setting in BIOS to enable/disable the Gigabit LAN ?
If not and the Realtek LAN is not showing n Device manager it may have died.

Possibly grab a LiveCD of something like Ubuntu and see if the LAN show up in here
Something in Windoze might be messing with the drivers

alisam

837 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1893936 1-Nov-2017 21:54

Solved.

I found articles about re-setting the BIOS to its defaults.

But one said, remove the laptop battery.

I did (rarely use the battery), rebooted and the 'Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller' was there. Ethernet is working.

Shutdown, put the battery back in, rebooted on mains power and all is OK.

I would have never thought of doing that.

Thanks to everyone for posting comments.

Rickles

2938 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1894904 3-Nov-2017 18:42

Sounds like the Network Controller driver got a little scrambled for some reason ... possibly a software patch or update went awry. Most often simply uninstalling the driver and full reboot (turning machine off, not just a restart) cures this, but as you said it didn't show up in Device Manager.

However, a cold full reboot tends to flush anything held in RAM and reinstalls/overwrites the driver ... which the battery removal evidently did too.

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