Solved The internet stopped working. Faulty network card?

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Unfortunately, my Ethernet stopped working again after a few hours. I'll need to try more drivers and maybe even different kernels.
 
Useful tip with VM.

I'll try a few more drivers first and if that fails again, then I'll try Windows and see how that works.
 
I see no driver for my NIC when I run the "lsmod" command in terminal. Something went wrong after I used a few commands I shouldn't while trying to install the right driver (r8168).

Soon I will install Windows 10 and monitor the internet for any changes or loss of access throughout the next day.
 
I had just finished installing Windows and I had no internet. I used USB tethering to install missing and outdated drivers and my Ethernet works for now.

I'm sure it's a driver problem on Linux, but I will wait half a day or more to see how the internet will behave on Windows. My sound and microphone don't work on Windows though. On Linux, depending on the DE, it's just the microphone not working.
 
Hardware sometimes does not work properly without the drivers being installed and usually without the chipset being installed first.

Once validated that work follow the instructions in post #11 for the windows section then install Linux on to a USB drive and see if it works correctly.

Might have to turn off fast boot in both power and BIOS settings.
 
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Well, the internet stopped working on Windows too. After troubleshooting, I get an error that the Ethernet cable is unplugged, but it's not, and neither is the cable faulty since one of the first fixes I tried was switching the cable for a different one. That didn't work for long, and I started losing connectivity again. A few Linux distributions also report the same issue. I read somewhere about a very similar experience to mine. The root cause was a damaged network card.

Tomorrow I should have a Wi-Fi USB adapter and will report back on how it works.
 
I bought a Wi-Fi adapter with an internal antenna because I thought (and still think) it's a more enjoyable experience to have internet access without the long Ethernet cable. I don't know if it's a driver problem, the distance, the two walls between the router and the device, or just the device itself, but the signal is too weak and I get a very slow internet speed on my PC. It's stable though, in the sense of not losing connectivity fully after a few hours of continuous work.

Tommorow I will go back to the shop I bought it from and change it for a USB to Ethernet adapter. I'll report back on how that one works.
 
The shop didn't have a USB to Ethernet adapter available yesterday, so they ordered one for me. It didn't arrive today, but hopefully tomorrow it should.
 
Thanks for the tip, but let's first see how this will work.

The USB to Ethernet adapter won't arrive till Monday, so I'll update the thread then with the results.
 
As before, the USB to Ethernet adapter also stops working after a few hours. I tried different router ports and different USB ports too, but to no avail. I get connected for a few seconds, and then the connection fails.

Could it be a motherboard problem, perhaps?
 
Please downloaded MINITOOLBOX unzip to your desktop and run it as admin.
Checkmark following boxes:
Flush DNS
Reset FF proxy Settings
Reset Ie Proxy Settings
Report IE Proxy Settings
Report FF Proxy Settings
List content of Hosts
List IP configuration
List Winsock Entries
List last 10 Event Viewer log
List Installed Programs
List Users, Partitions and Memory size
List Devices (problems only)
Click Go and Attach the log in your reply.
 
Beginning to think that there is something going on with the motherboard. Have we reset the BIOS back to Factory and since we have windows installed have, we checked the BIOS to see about an update?

You did install the drivers for the USB to Ethernet?

Something else could be causing it to wig out as well.

One other option could be done is assemble the system outside of the case on THICK cardboard and see if the issue proceeds. Use minimal parts to get the system to run.

Have you tried the live version of Linux with the adapter?

Do know that there are a few things that need to be turned off in the BIOS for Linux to work properly.
Secure Boot OFF
Legacy BIOS ON
Fast Boot OFF
(May be called something else in different BIOS's)
 
I'm using Linux currently, so I can't run MiniToolBox.

I don't know much about BIOS, but my PC uses UEFI. Secure and fast boot are disabled. I couldn't find the Legacy BIOS option.

We didn't try updating the BIOS or UEFI. I will research more about it tomorrow, install Windows, and run the MiniToolBox program. After that, I'll try running the system with minimal parts.

I tried the adapter on the Live Linux version, and it doesn't work there either.
 
Binary said:
Could it be a motherboard problem, perhaps?
Click to expand...
Outside of testing it assembled outside if the case with minimal things attached.

Do not need to update the BIOS seeing that it is already on version 2.50 so there is no need to flash it again.

Desktop Mobo: ASRock model: H61M-HVS serial: <superuser required>
UEFI: American Megatrends v: P2.50 date: 09/18/2012
Click to expand...

Binary said:
I tried the adapter on the Live Linux version, and it doesn't work there either.
Click to expand...

So, it is not the USB ports they are working since you use them to tether form the phone.

Thinking that it is the NIC and just replace it with another NIC card. That is if you have the space for one.

OR post on the Linux that you have installed I had the same issue that the NIC would not work with Linux, yet it did with Windows. They had me use terminal and run a command that made it work correctly. Now that was Mint Cinnamon and when XP was still a thing. If need be, reference this thread here as well.

Post #5 reports show that you are using the same Linux that I am currently running Manjaro KDE.
 
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My internet didn't work with Windows 10 either, though. After a few hours, it just stopped, like usual. I haven't tried it yet with the USB-to-Ethernet adapter, but I will.

Currently, I'm using Linux Mint Cinnamon. I like Manjaro KDE, but I'm not sure if it's stable enough and the right choice for someone not so tech-savvy with Linux overall, because it's based on Arch.

I tried almost all the USB ports, and the result was the same. The NIC is integrated with the motherboard, but I do have room for a new one if, in the end, that should be the last resort.

I didn't have enough time yesterday, but today and tomorrow I'll try everything you guys suggested, and if neither works, I will ask the Linux Mint community and link to this thread for details.
 
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