Ethernet not working for either built-in motherboard port or ethernet card

Apr 26, 2018
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Hey everyone,

Alright, my main issue is that my ethernet port on my motherboard stopped working. The small lights around the ethernet port do not light up when there is an ethernet cord connected to it.

My PC has both Windows 10 and Linux Mint installed on my main hard drive.I have already tried updating the drivers in windows and my motherboard bios is up to date. I tried to connect to the internet using the Linux as well, even went as far as to try to run linux mint from a portable usb drive. They all could not detect that ethernet was plugged in, which led me to believe that the ethernet port was shot for the motherboard. So I bought a PCIe ethernet card to try to solve the problem.

For some reason the ethernet card worked on windows for about 30 minutes for the first time, and then my computer would not be able to detect that the card was connected, even after reboot. Linux had similar results. The card worked perfectly for my other PC, so I don't think that the card was defective

On a possibly related note, my computer also randomly reboots itself without warning. The average temperature for the motherboard is around 50-55 degrees C while the cpu runs at about 40-50 degrees C, so I believe that rules out overheating.

Specs:
Motherboard: AsusTek M5A78L-M/USB3
CPU: AMD FX-6300
GPU:NVidia GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
Windows 10-64bit and Linux Mint Dual-boot
PSU: EVGA 500W


I realize that the motherboard might need to be replaced, but I wanted to see if there was anything else I can do to make sure that I need to replace it.

Thanks
 
Ohh, that's an interesting issue.

It's possible that your MB has bad capacitors, or the PSU needs to be replaced. The CPU temp wouldn't be causing this issue.

Also move your network cable to another port on the switch/router just to be sure there's not some other short going on. Also replace the patch cables in the chain if you have extras.
 
FYI, I've had a similar issue once with a old 5-port Netgear Prosafe switch. I had to unplug power from it for awhile, then back in. Ultimately the switch had to be replaced because it got far too frequent. After replacing the switch, the issue was resolved.

You might to power cycle whatever piece of network equipment your PC is plugged into. If that clears up, even if only a few minutes, you might have found the source of your problem.
 
I checked the motherboard for blown out capacitors but didn't find any. I also tried different ethernet ports and power cycling the router the computer is connected to. Still no results. My spare laptop connected to the same router via ethernet with no problem, so I don't think it is the router either.
 
Keep in mind though that in networking (OSI layer) this is happening in the first two layers; either 'Physical' or 'Data Link'. What that means is that if you're not at least able to get link lights, either there's a dubious termination in the patch cables someplace, or a failing physical (electrical) component failure with the PC itself, NIC, other piece of networking equipment in the chain.
 
If you have 2 Networks, one on the mobo and one on a pci card, then I would guess you have the chances of 3 possibilites.
1 - the cable is not working properly
2 - the router you plug into has a problem
3 - software on your computer is stopping it working.
I am dubious about all 3, because if you are running Linux and not getting anything, I would say hardware, but I don't want to say hardware because you have a new pci card in there which makes no sense, unless something seriously is going wrong with the motherboard.

If its not 1 or 2 (and by the sounds of what you did already it isn't) I would be checking firewalls on the computer and malware. Zhpcleaner is great for routing out malware.