[SOLVED] Ethernet cable isn't recognised

[TrippyNeon]

Hello, I am having trouble with the situation at hand. A few weeks ago a lightning storm blew out my router and we didn't have internet for several days. They fixed it a few days after but up to this point I stayed connected through wi-fi dongle. Today I tried to connect with the cable and windows won't recognize that the cable has been plugged in. I went to the store thinking that the cable was faulty but not even the new cable is working. What's more the light that lights up when I plug in the cable doesn't light up anymore which has me thinking something in the mobo blew out during the storm. How can I check if its a hardware issue and if so what are my options?
I already tried reinstalling the driver, cleared CMOS, rebooted a bunch of times, tried different ports on the router but it still doesn't work and windows isn't recognizing the cable.
Thank you for your help in advance.

 

[USAFRet]

It is quite likely the LAN port died.
That exact thing happened on mine during a closeby lightning strike.

One of these in a PCIe slot works just fine.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004F34ONC
(was $9.99 when I bought it)

 

[TrippyNeon]

Thank you for the reply! My follow-up question is, is this slot going to work the same way my old one did?
Thank you for replying once again!

 

[USAFRet]

Thank you for the reply! My follow-up question is, is this slot going to work the same way my old one did?
Thank you for replying once again!

In my system, zero difference from the (now dead) LAN port on the motherboard.