Ethernet adapter will not work after wipe and reload.

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kyea67

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Hello guys thanks for taking the time to look at this post. So I have an interesting issue with a computer. Customer brought in her Compaq f750us, running Windows Vista 32 bit, for a virus removal. Successfully removed the viruses, but the Ethernet port will only report connected local access only (No Internet).

After doing couple More scans of malware removers, with no issues detected, we decided to do a system recovery. The system recovery worked well and reinstalled fine. However, I still continue to have Ethernet problems with Local access only. Booted in a Linux stick and tried Firefox from there with success. I can browse from that, but no matter what I do, I cannot browse the internet using the Ethernet port only local access in Windows. Note: the WiFi works fine.

After searching around the internet to find the problem and trying suggestions I'm stumped. There were a couple of posts regarding Windows XP on this machine. They suggested to install the chip-set and network drivers separately. That did not work, I have tried multiple time to reinstall the driver again and even install the driver on HP's website to no avail. I'm suspecting root kit or virus on the boot sector but thats a log shot. Any suggestions?
 
kyea67 said:
Hello guys thanks for taking the time to look at this post. So I have an interesting issue with a computer. Customer brought in her Compaq f750us, running Windows Vista 32 bit, for a virus removal. Successfully removed the viruses, but the Ethernet port will only report connected local access only (No Internet).

After doing couple More scans of malware removers, with no issues detected, we decided to do a system recovery. The system recovery worked well and reinstalled fine. However, I still continue to have Ethernet problems with Local access only. Booted in a Linux stick and tried Firefox from there with success. I can browse from that, but no matter what I do, I cannot browse the internet using the Ethernet port only local access in Windows. Note: the WiFi works fine.

After searching around the internet to find the problem and trying suggestions I'm stumped. There were a couple of posts regarding Windows XP on this machine. They suggested to install the chip-set and network drivers separately. That did not work, I have tried multiple time to reinstall the driver again and even install the driver on HP's website to no avail. I'm suspecting root kit or virus on the boot sector but thats a log shot. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Edit: I believe the chipset is nforce 610m. The network driver is apart of that installation.
 
Its a laptop, so I'm not able to replace the controller. The computer had recovery and I reinstalled back to factory. I'm assuming they would put the correct driver for the chip set in the recovery, but it still didn't work. I did install a USB to Ethernet adapter on the computer and that worked great. The onboard Ethernet just won't work. Wireless is fine though.
 
I didn't realize it was a notebook.


Have you tried booting in safemode with networking?

For your own sanity, if you have a spare drive around that you can swap into the machine and reload windows on to it.... that might save your brain cells. If you load windows onto a fresh drive and the ethernet still won't work properly then I'd call it a hardware failure.

I would like to think this is a driver issue, since it works with linux.
 
Gary Rockliff said:
What do you mean by wipe and reload? Do you use the recovery partition to reinstall the system back to default?
Click to expand...

Yes, if you did as Gary mentions here, all the correct drivers would be reinstalled. (Hopefully) You mention system recovery, so I *assume* you restored from a factory partition.

What does the dev. manager look like? After a reload, I will go to the manufactures website & download/install all applicable drivers for the pc. Also a possibility that the factory restore didn't successfully take for some reason.

If you have the time/energy, you could do the restore from the partition a second time, although I would personally opt for a zeroed drive/wipe & install from an ISO to ensure all traces of a virus/rootkit are eradicated, especially if you suspect something like that.

I've only had one issue like this in the past - I think it was a Dell desktop & I had a deal of a time getting the Ethernet to work. Once I hit on the correct driver, it did finally work.
 
Yes I did a destructive recovery back to factory from image. I did try to uninstall the drivers from the machine then install the drivers from HPs website for that computer and no luck still the same issue. The computer did have a recovery partition hidden
on the drive that I used
 
An mbr virus/root kit comes to mind. Those would be unaffected by a system image recovery reinstall. I have seen this happen in practice one time.
 
Thanks a lot guys for all your input. So the WiFi card will not connect to the customers router as well. She says that it will connect everywhere else, but not at her home. At this point, I'm definitely suspecting rootkit or boot sector virus, because the computer was infected in the first place. I did run a scan of Kaspersky rescue disk, but it came up clean. After I try the suggestions above, I'm thinking of just zeroing the HDD and installing from windows CD using the Customers product key. I'm also probably gonna do a HW Diagnostic test before that just to make sure. Either that or order recovery media.
 
The wirless works everywhere else? Try wireless with no security on her router. If it's the Atheros wireless card, they can be a bit odd about what they'll connect to. You'll have to remove that wireless connection via "manage wireless networks", otherwise it's going to try to connect with the secure settings.

If no go with security turned off, then you may need to do a hard reset on that router and check for a firmware update as well. Maybe best to have her bring it to you for that reason.

When you were using Linux, were you able to connect via wired OR wireless? What did it ID the wired connection as?
 
FremontPC said:
The wirless works everywhere else? Try wireless with no security on her router. If it's the Atheros wireless card, they can be a bit odd about what they'll connect to. You'll have to remove that wireless connection via "manage wireless networks", otherwise it's going to try to connect with the secure settings.

If no go with security turned off, then you may need to do a hard reset on that router and check for a firmware update as well. Maybe best to have her bring it to you for that reason.

When you were using Linux, were you able to connect via wired OR wireless? What did it ID the wired connection as?
Click to expand...

+1

Yeah, that doesn't sound viral to me either.
 
IF you did a factory restore from the recovery partition and ethernet still does not work, then there is obviously something going on with the onboard ethernet controlller/chipset.

Is it showing up in device manager OK? Have you tried another cable?

Try running the Kaspersky live cd again, and type windowsunlocker using the command line. see here http://support.kaspersky.com/8005?el=88446

Also try using DriverIdentifier to update drivers, I use it all the time. http://www.driveridentifier.com/

Worse case scenario, download all the drivers for this computer, back up clients data, delete both partitions, repartition the drive and do a clean install of Windows.
 
Yes it shows up in Dev manage as installed and when I install I have no errors at all. It just does not want to connect. I have tried many different Ethernet cables and checked the ipconfig. The results are even when the Ethernet cable is plugged in and network verified working from another computer, the IP address is still an auto configuration 169 address with no default gateway.

I tried the above mentioned suggestions like zeroing the hard drive using killdisk and installing from CD . I used the drivers from the website for the computer and I still have the same issue. I left it today on the PC doctor scanning hardware I'll get the results tomorrow, but I still can't figure this one out. Next step is maybe swapping hard drive for new one to see. Gotta love these hard to find issues. Anyways thanks for the input.
 
Have you attempted (and failed) to connect to more than one router? This isn't clear from the posts so far and I would sure want to take that variable off the table before spending any more time on the machine.

Can you connect to the router with your (known good) computer or your phone? Are other computers at the site connecting successfully?

If you have been working with the same router from the beginning of this project, replace the router temporarily to see if that makes a difference.

Just a thought...
 
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