[SOLVED] Ethernet ports dead after power surge

[Yankee407]

So, I live in Central Florida. Around this time of year we have severe thunder storms between noon and 5 pretty much every day as the east and west sea-breezes clash in the center of the state. I have a windows 10 desktop PC that I'm using to remote into work, and an XBox One X for entertainment, both of which were connected to my Spectrum router/modem via ethernet cable. There was a power surge during one of these storms, and now both only will connect via wifi (PC has a USB wifi, Xbox built in wifi). The ethernet port on the PC doesn't light up when the cable is plugged in anymore, and when looking at the network adapters, the LAN adapter is just no longer there, I'm assuming this power surge destroyed the ethernet ports on both machines, as I've tried multiple software fixes on the PC to no avail. I just wanted to check here before moving forward with purchasing a new ethernet port to connect to the motherboard, and potentially sending in the xbox to microsoft, or just waiting the 6 months or so for the next gen. Any insight is appreciated, thanks!

using GIGABYTE GA-Z77M-D3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard, and a standard xbox one x.

 

[popatim]

Nics are pretty cheap and the damage may be covered under your homeowners policy.

 

[bill001g]

Are you sure it is not the router that is the device with the bad ports.

Although it won't do very much what happens if you plug the pc into the xbox. Many times you get lights even if it does not do much else.

Do you have any old router or switch you can test with.

It is not common for ethernet to fail because of power issues. The ethernet ports themselves are magnetically isolated from the power so problems do not travel between devices. It would be more likely that a chip controlling the ethernet would fail. It is very uncommon and for it to fail on 2 devices at the same time is even more unlikely. The common device is the router and the chips that run the ethernet port and the wifi radios tend to be physically different devices inside so one could fail and the other work.

 

[Yankee407]

Are you sure it is not the router that is the device with the bad ports.

Although it won't do very much what happens if you plug the pc into the xbox. Many times you get lights even if it does not do much else.

Do you have any old router or switch you can test with.

It is not common for ethernet to fail because of power issues. The ethernet ports themselves are magnetically isolated from the power so problems do not travel between devices. It would be more likely that a chip controlling the ethernet would fail. It is very uncommon and for it to fail on 2 devices at the same time is even more unlikely. The common device is the router and the chips that run the ethernet port and the wifi radios tend to be physically different devices inside so one could fail and the other work.

So, I checked the router using a laptop and a new Ethernet cable, sure enough, nothing. Went to Spectrum and exchanged the router, started it up the either net ports work now on the router (obviously). I trouble shot all three ethernet cables I had with the laptop, all are working in good order.

But the PC is still not "seeing" the ethernet connection. For the Xbox and laptop, when the cable is plugged in, the lights on the back of the router ports lights up, like its supposed to. When plugging in the pc, nothing, both ends. Also, I cannot get the LAN network adapter to show back up. After a couple step by steps followed online (most suggesting that a restart would auto recognize the new cable), still nothing. Like, the entire network adapter is gone. I'm assuming this is what I thought it originally was (port on the pc is FUBAR). Even in the device manager under network adapters, there is no LAN adapter (I even had show hidden devices checked). So before I but a new NIC, just wanted to check again here with the updated info. Thanks for the replies so far!

 

[USAFRet]

It can easily be both. NIC on the PC and router.

From a recent lightning strike, PC NIC and printer NIC both died. Connected to different switches.

$10 PCIe NIC on the PC, all is good.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004F34ONC