Question Partially working wired nic offers no internet access

pocketdexter

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Oct 1, 2010
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I have a prebuilt Gateway SX2110G-UW24 running Win 10 build 1909 which is giving me problems trying to connect to the wired internet. The nic is stuck "identifying network".

History: This pc was previously sent to me to clean up malware/virus/etc. It was properly wiped and reinstalled. However, it was migrated to win 10 when it was returned. It was stored for 3 years in the off position. The family member powered it up 2 weeks ago and used it fine. Their children used it and the next day they claim it became slow. I assess it and I notice malware and a partially working nic driver. I clean up the malware and perform a system restore. I update the pc to win 10 latest build. Powered it off and powered it on a few days later. The nic won't allow access to the internet again.

Solutions attempted: I have tried nic drivers from gateway for both win 7 and win 8, from realtek, and even installed another pci-e nic. Same issue on the pci-e nic. Cable to switch and switchports are known goods. Drivers were both installed on live windows boot and safe mode without networking. I have tried resetting the tcp/ip stack, winsock, flush dns, ip config renew/release, chkdsk/sfc both report ok,reverting back to win 8.1 on previous mentioned attempted solutions, and tried to restart dhcp client in services. I noticed that i get access denied when i try to stop dhcp client so i suspect this is either a software problem or an incompatibility with the motherboards chipset and windows updates/version.

The nic card is not receiving an IP address from the DHCP. Device manager claims the driver is working correctly. I have tried also manually setting the correct IP settings and nothing happens. What else can I try before calling this nic card software obsolete?
 

kanewolf

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Run safe mode with networking. Run a Linux live CD. Both of those help separate the hardware from the software.
My guess is that a clean OS install will be required to get it back. Then tell the owners to not let the kids have an admin account.
 
Little different, but I've noticed if a system has pending updates, they can become very slow until those are done. I've had issues where we've installed a new version of Windows 10 and a nice stops working.

Usually what fixes it, go into device manager, uninstall the nic there, may not be a bad idea to have it delete the nic driver. Then allow it to scan for hardware again. You may want to use a wifi USB or something to connect to WiFi here. Once it finds it again, right click the device, have it update drivers and tell it go to Windows update for the driver.

I worked on 2 Microsoft studio systems that acted this way after one of the large feature updates, and similar procedures to this fixed them.


If nothing else, pick up a USB to Ethernet adapter on Amazon for 10-15 bucks and be happy.
 

pocketdexter

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Run safe mode with networking. Run a Linux live CD. Both of those help separate the hardware from the software.
My guess is that a clean OS install will be required to get it back. Then tell the owners to not let the kids have an admin account.

Safe mode with networking has same symptoms. Ubuntu 12 same problem on both integrated nic and PCI-E nic. Mobo software incompatibility?

Forgot to mention. The attempted solutions were both on clean win 8 and win 10 installs.
 

pocketdexter

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Oct 1, 2010
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Little different, but I've noticed if a system has pending updates, they can become very slow until those are done. I've had issues where we've installed a new version of Windows 10 and a nice stops working.

Usually what fixes it, go into device manager, uninstall the nic there, may not be a bad idea to have it delete the nic driver. Then allow it to scan for hardware again. You may want to use a wifi USB or something to connect to WiFi here. Once it finds it again, right click the device, have it update drivers and tell it go to Windows update for the driver.

I worked on 2 Microsoft studio systems that acted this way after one of the large feature updates, and similar procedures to this fixed them.


If nothing else, pick up a USB to Ethernet adapter on Amazon for 10-15 bucks and be happy.

The original slowness was stuck windows updates which could never be completed due to lack of internet. At first, the malware seemed to be the culprit to the issues, but it is not the case.

When I mentioned trying drivers on both clean win 8 and 10 installs, I did it both from the driver .exe and also through the device manager. Both updating the driver and also clean installing different driver versions for both pcie and integrated nics. I also restarted the system before updating the drivers as well. I guess it was a bad call on the pcie nic. I will try a usb to nic adapter.
 

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
Safe mode with networking has same symptoms. Ubuntu 12 same problem on both integrated nic and PCI-E nic. Mobo software incompatibility?

Forgot to mention. The attempted solutions were both on clean win 8 and win 10 installs.
If multiple OS implementations have a similar problem, then there is SOMETHING in hardware that is a problem. BUT considering how poor the CPU in that thing is, I wouldn't spend too much more time attempting to resurrect it.