[SOLVED] After a hiatus of usage and a few updates, PC refuses to acknowledge ethernet connection (after initially working before a few updates and restarts)

[Duhpraidough]

So I finally bothered to turn on my wife’s backup PC that had gone unused for the better part of a year or two. I assumed there would be a bunch of windows updates in addition to any GPU updates and began the tedious process of going through them all. A few restarts later, the Gigabyte motherboard stops recognizing the ethernet in the OS (in network settings, it says no connection detected, but the lights on the back of the motherboard are flashing orange)

I’m not sure if one of these updates bricked something relating to the ethernet driver on the motherboard or something but the fact that the internet is now out has left me with only obtuse methods of getting a new driver onto it

can anyone lead me to the correct page to download a driver to correct my network issues?

Gigabyte B-350F

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Is this the motherboard your wife's system has? If so, Gigabyte don't have a B-350F in their portfolio. The hint/giveaway is the ROG eye/logo on the rear I/O in your picture posted above. Be wary you don't use the wrong drivers from the wrong source. If you manually insalled the wrong drivers for your platform, that would explain the issue. If you used the OS to update all your drivers, that's also a mistake. You're advised to manually source any and/or all necessary drivers from your manufacturer's support site, then manually install them in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator. For your GPU, you're advised to use DDU first to remove all drivers, then manually install with the latest drivers.

As for your board, what BIOS version are you currently on?

 

[bill001g]

The best source for a driver for a intel chip is always directly from intel...same as if it was any other vendor.

Microsoft likely loaded some generic driver. Now it could be something like the chipset driver for the motherboard. That you want to get from the motherboard manufacture or if it is for example a intel chipset you could try that one.

I really hate all these software updates. They claim they are for some security issue but few people have actual security issues but huge numbers of people are affected by microsoft update processes messing something up.

 

[MJS WARLORD]

just out of curiosity open control panel , open network and sharing centre , look at access internet , does it say ethernet or has something changed it.

on your screenshot i noticed hardware code 37 , their might be something in this article of interest to you

[Solved] Code 37: Windows cannot initialize the device driver for this hardware - Driver Easy

 

[Ralston18]

And I will add the suggestion to look in Reliability History and Event Viewer for additional errors, warnings, etc. related to the posted failures.

Also check Update History for any problem or failed updates.

 

[Duhpraidough]

Sorry for the late reply, but I solved it by right clicking the network adapter in device manager, going to properties, clicking Update driver, then browse my computer for drivers. Two options with the same name came up, I just clicked one and the adapter hooked back up to the internet after a few seconds

Think the issue was me using driver booster to update a bunch of drivers and it might've downloaded the wrong one for the network adapter for some reason, but I was able to switch it back by browsing drivers

Thanks for the replies!