LAN #1 Controller Missing..

[speedracer]

A friend of mine called saying he couldn't get on the internet and the router doesn't see his computer. They had a terrible lightning storm last night and coincidentally it was working up until yesterday. When the lan cable is switched physically from Lan1 to Lan2 the router recognizes the computer and internet access is fine. When I did a device check in device mgr all I get under Network Adapter is "Realtec PCIe GRE family Controller Network Adapter #2" Adapter #1 isn't even listed (checked my computer and it is listed as "Realted PCIe GRE Family Controller Network Adapter" and it also lists BOTH this AND #2. I checked his bios and selections appear o.k. Loaded the latest LAN driver from the GIGABYTE website. Rebooted and again NO listing in device mgr and the router still doesn't 'see' the mb lan adapter. BOTTOM LINE: how do I get the first (#1) adapter to be seen and become functional again?? Could the LAN 1 actually have been rendered unusable by the storm without affecting LAN#2? Any hard checks to confirm this? THANKS for any suggestions provided..

[Aussie Allan]

  LAN  can be exposed to a double Wammie!.......Lightning strike can hit not only your house power, ... but down telephone lines too

  No experience with testing whether its fried or not, but lucky you have a second port to keep you up and running

  The value of a "Good" spike protection in your system come to mind........a good quality power filter board will carry both power and phone jacks for this very reason.....As do UPS units if you have the Money.....or better still , ... "Both"

 I don't really believe in co- incidences ... PC problem....+.....electrical storm...+..zero power protection =  one LAN ..... very lucky really,...could have been the entire rig!

 Now that out of the way.......The only thing I can think of is, .... download the driver concerned and pop it on a pendrive....download something like Revo-un-installer and install........next turn off machine and configure hardware to trouble port and reboot to windows.........us the un-installer at it's deepest setting to rip out the driver and all sub folder applicable and reboot if you have too..........install drivers again and reboot to windows and see if it's back!

 Aussie Allan

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

This is a very common problem and when I used to be a freelance computer engineer I used to change many modems and LAN cards after a thunder storm. No doubt that is what has happened in this case and there is nothing you can do to repair it. It was lucky that it only destroyed your LAN connection. If yopu don't have any safeguards the best thing to do is to disconnect the cable in the event of a storm.