Aspire E 15 LAN ethernet hardware missing

I had a problem with explorer slowing down, defender not opening and general slowness. I figured it was a virus so I shut reset windows and kept my files. When I got everything installed I updated the bios. Sometime after I noticed I was able to connect wifi (which I'm using now) but not the LAN cable. I went to acer and updated the driver but it said the hardware was not found. I looked in device manager and Ethernet card is not listed. checked on hidden devices and got this list but I don't see the "Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller" listed anymore. At this point my noob skills are maxed and I'm not sure what to do to fix this. My wifi at work and home are terrible so the LAM line is a big reason I got this model. Thanks for your assistance!

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kshock

here is a pic also I have a E5-575G-57D4 system unaltered

kshock

Another note, tonight my Bluetooth driver stopped working. I reinstalled the driver and it works now but I'm wondering if it is related. Thanks!

billsey

Probably not related, the Ethernet is soldered in as part of the motherboard, the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module is an add-on card mounted to the motherboard. I'm sorry to say I can't think of anything that would cause the Ethernet to be completely missing short of a fried chip. Do you have anything flagged in Device Manager with a ? or !, especially something marked unknown?

kshock

Thanks Billsey, I'll check into it... Noting showing those indicators. I checked every tab. The Ethernet adaptor does not show at all on device manager, however, I did find a spot giving the Ethernet a mac address. I'm not sure if that was a current reading or if it was just an image of a previous one. Now I can't find it but it was somewhere under network adaptor settings. This is not the first time I have lost the connection. it happened a couple times over the past few weeks where, even after reboot, it would not connect. One time I was able to rest the Ethernet adaptor and that worked. Another time the auto troubleshooter fixed it. Another couple times it just worked the next day. hard to troubleshoot when the vairables change. are there any service bulletins that talk about this issue? Thanks!