Ok so here's my issue. Yesterday, a lightning storm in my area took out a phone line near me, instantly disconnecting me from the internet and telling me that a network cable was unplugged. I checked all the connections and everything and they were fine, but when the telephone lines came back up, no connection on my desktop.
I am connected through a modem given to me by comcast. i have an ethernet cable going from it to my linksys wireless router, which emits wifi and i can get on the internet from laptops and play on xbox live. my desktop computer and xbox live cord are wired to the router. the weird thing is that when i try to connect the desktop i get an error message, "network cable unplugged" and it won't let me view the status tab on the LAN's properties. I've checked all the connections and i didn't change anything in terms of the ethernet cable positions so i dont know what the problem is. I get no internet connection whatsoever from the desktop and it wont let me renew the ip.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Try the power reset process.
Power off modem, router and your computer
Power on modem, wait for lights to settle down
Power on router, again wait till it settles
Power on computer
See if this helps.
Tried that and got the same error message. i unplugged the modem and router and shut down my desktop. then i plugged the cord back into the modem and waited til the lights settled. all of the lights were on but one labeled "link" so i plugged in my router. i waited til all the regular lights were on and when i looked back over at the modem the "link" light was now blinking. then i powered on my desktop, logged in, waited, and got the same "a network cable is unplugged" message. it took forever for the computer to show the connection icon on the taskbar, like it was trying to connect but couldnt. I'm going to go try it again to see if the "link light will go on without the router being on. Otherwise, any further suggestions? Many thanks.
I'm not quite sure if it is but either way my mum's calling the cable guy today to see if he can fix it. so if that doesnt work i'll look into what you said. much obliged good sir.
Alright well the cable guy didnt do much good. they told me that if the "port light" on my desktop wasnt lighting up it was a problem w/ my pc. now that the problem's identified, any ideas on how can fix it myself? my mom wants me to call geek squad buuuuut i'd rather not wait unless it's way too complicated. An idea i had was that the lightning bolt shorted that part out, is this possible? Thanks.
Do as I suggested. Put in a new PCI Ethernet card. If the one you currently have in on-board then the PCI card will replace it. You can go into BIOS Setup and disable the on-board nic but it's not necessary.
No need to let the Geek Squad anywhere near your computer. Definitely not for what they would charge you. You can fix this yourself for less than $20 and probably less than $10.
What is the make and model number of the computer? We can probably find a users guide or maintenance guide that will show you how to do this. If not I or one of the other folks here can walk you though it.
Schweet. my pc is a dell dimenson 4400 from the early 2000's and i can't find the print guide that came with it. I've only seen the inside of this computer once so i have no idea where stuff goes, i suppose this is a perfect learnng opportunity though! I'll take a look at those links you posted about the pci cards and go see if i can find something similar at radio shack or best buy. I'll also look online for my pc's manual and figure some o this stuff out myself. Before i go out and buy something though, do you know if there's anything else that could potentially be the problem other than this? Thanks for all the help sir, i appreciate it.
