Question MSI Z590 Pro Wifi: Ethernet refuses to work

[habanero84]

Hi folks. To start, I'm not terribly tech savvy. What's happening is my hardwired internet kept dropping at random (for like half an hour at a time) while the other PCs on my network were fine. I switched to the wifi for a time, which was also unstable. This was most notable when I'd host a game on my PC and the other two PCs on my network would get dropped frequently with my wifi bars down to one dot. Now when I try to switch back to ethernet, the "Diagnose network problems" screen says "Ethernet cable isn't plugged in." The little yellow light on the back of the motherboard that used to come on when the ethernet was plugged in is no longer lit up. There's clearly a cable plugged in - it made the little click noise and everything. Cool, cool.

Next I tried a USB to ethernet adapter here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MYTSN18?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1 - Same problem, the lights won't come on in the little adapter no matter which USB port I plug it into. No internet. I decided to try what I saw here: https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...recognized-above-100mbps-full-duplex.3745458/ and force set speed & duplex to 100Mbps. This turns the lights on in my plug-in adapter and I have internet, however, my download speed is a sob-inducing 0.03Mbps. So it's possible to have things work, just not well. Without understanding much about the rest of what was said in that thread, I switched the speed and duplex back to auto (no internet now) and decided to get some more pointed advice.

I'm running Windows 11. I've had this PC for about 3 years now without issue. There are 2 other PCs hardwired to the same modem (not router) without any problems at all. I've tried these things:

-Switching cables
-Uninstalling the ethernet driver and letting windows stick a new one in there
-Uninstalling the ethernet driver and installing the MSI Z590 Pro ethernet driver
-Disabling the built in ethernet adapter so the USB ethernet can work
-Uninstalling all ethernet drivers and letting windows install one for the USB ethernet adapter
-Telling windows to restart both the USB and the built in adapters
-Made an attempt to update the bios, but the bios won't recognize the file that I downloaded from MSI's site, exactly as MSI instructed me to.
-Sacrificing a goat to the tech gods
-Useless humor

What else can I try? Maybe this isn't even a motherboard thing, who knows. I feel I should note that playing around in the BIOS is a bit scary for me because I know that one can really destroy a PC that way. I am noob. So I would appreciate very precise instructions if I need to go in there.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Lutfij]

Made an attempt to update the bios, but the bios won't recognize the file that I downloaded from MSI's site, exactly as MSI instructed me to
Is this your motherboard;
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/Z590-PRO-WIFI
? If so, what BIOS version are you currently on?

Did you follow steps outlined in this guide;

View: https://youtu.be/vJ3pwSPu-j4

Different chipset/board but the principle is exactly the same.

 

[habanero84]

Yes, that's my motherboard. I'm on version E7D09IMS.A30 (according to the BIOS screen). That doesn't match the versions on their site, so maybe it's just that old. And thank you for posting that video, it had a few more steps than MSI posted here:

https://us.msi.com/support/technical_details/MB_BIOS_Update

I'll give it a shot and report back.

 

[habanero84]

I copied his actions exactly, but the bios flash button didn't do anything. It turned red on the motherboard, but nothing happened. I tried holding it longer, tapping it, and using a tool to make sure I pressed it all the way. I entered the bios menu and went to the "enter flash mode" option - it found my thumb drive sitting in the flash spot, but didn't show the msi.rom file. Just an empty USB. The file is clearly there. I'm stumped.