I was just sitting here surfing (that is, I didn’t make any changes to the computer or network) when the Internet on my laptop suddenly cut out. But I turned on the wireless, which works fine. Then I tested the ethernet cable in another computer, and it works fine.
But when I use the same ethernet cable on my laptop and disable the wireless, I get nothing. I looked at the network card in the device manager (it’s a Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller if that matters) and Windows 7 says it is working. I updated the drivers. Still not getting anything.
I did some Google searches and found people had this kind of problem when they had a lightning storm and it fried their network card, but there is nothing of the sort going on here - everything’s calm and peaceful. I’m worried that I might have to send my laptop in for repair and but I can’t afford to be without it for a great length of time since I need it for both work and school. Is there anything else I should try that I haven’t thought of yet? Why would it just stop working all of a sudden like that with no apparent inciting incident?
Hmm, in the Device Manager I do not seem to see the ethernet port itself under “Network adapters”, which is where it should be right? All I see is the WiFi link and the aforementioned network card (Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller).
Does your laptop have a card slot (PCMCIA) or USB 2.0? You can buy an ethernet adapter for small money if you can’t be without your laptop for any period of time.
Many laptops disable the ethernet port as part of their power saving feature, which is usually different than the Windows power saving program. Perhaps your battery went low or you momentarily lost your AC connection.
Check out your Start menu for Dell/HP/Compaq software and check out the power saving features. In my Dell it’s called Quickset. You can try powering off your laptop, (re) connecting your AC plug and booting up again. If your ethernet has been disabled due to power management this will usually turn it back on.
Power the notebook down and take the battery out. Let it sit for 10 minutes then put the battery back in and power up. Does the port re-appear? Make sure the ethernet functionality is toggled to be “on” in the BIOS setup.
If the ethernet port is truly dead just get a USB 2.0 ethernet adapter. You can get them dirt cheap ( a few bucks) on ebay or $20-$30 in online stores. Like this
Doh, I think it was indeed the power saving that was causing the problem - I was running it on battery last night and the batt was low. At first I restarted and that didn’t work but for some reason (I guess after it was charged more) I was able to restart again and it worked.