I'm in need of a little help from the computer/IT savvy people help with a wee problem with my computer. The long and short of it is that I can't connect to the internet from my computer and Windows doesn't seem to recognize it has having any networking hardware onboard. By this I mean that there's no icon for a LAN in my system tray, when I open up the Control Panel it's not there either, and when I go to setting up a network it says that I don't have any networking hardware and the Device Manager doesn't show any network adapters either . Oddly enough though the connector in the back where you plug in the CAT cable lights up like it normally does for all that's worth.

So does this mean that I need buy a seperate NIC card for my computer in order to get connection back or is there any sort of fiddling that can be done? The only thing that's changed with my computer is that I've upgraded my video card but that took a few days because I didn't have a power cable for it initially and that kept my computer from booting up until I hooked the power to the card. On the subject of power, could a lack of power affect my LAN connection? I mean, is it possible that the video card is taxing my power supply (using an Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT w/a 450 watt power supply) and causing my onboard LAN to shut doewn? But after checking the Nvidia site real fast I see that my 9800 GT requires a minimum 400 W so I think I'm fine power wise as it's the only extra card in my computer.

Any help on this matter is greatly appreciated.

I think that lack of power doesn't affect the Lan networking.

Now, a conflict between two devices on the same BUS is maybe the origin of the problem. Have you check the verions of your drivers ?

Which drivers should I check? The only one that I can check that may be causing conflict are my video drivers, I can't check my network/ethernet drivers because the onboard LAN doesn't show up at all. I'll see if a new video driver doesn't do anything.

If the Lan doesn't show up on your report, so I think the problem come from there. Try to re-install it.

Check the Lan drivers, and the card bus drivers too, in case.

Sounds like you need to upgrade your power supply. If you've only got a 450w PSU and your graphics card is drawing 400w of that it seems the most obvious answer.

Another thing you could try is going into the BIOS and forcing it to detect all cards. It should be in the 'Plug and Play' settings, it says something like 'Re-detect cards on reboot'. That would make sure that your motherboard can still talk to your net card.

I'll definitely try the BIOS trick, that sounds promising. Just in case the onboard LAN is fried I bought an add on NIC card to be safe, it's cheap enough. A new PSU will probably have to wait until next year, I think I should have enough power for now but it probably would be a good idea to get something like a 500 or more PSU down the line.

On the subject of power supplies, anybody have any recommendations for a good 500+ watt PSU for under $100? Not too picky about brand though I do prefer a reliable name brand over generic, must have a decent number of connectors, and decent to good cooling.

Just played around with the BIOS and no luck there, nothing in the BIOS about detecting all cards and it says that the onboard LAN is enabled. Hopefully the add on NIC card will do the trick, I'm getting tired of doing all sorts of things to try to get my computer running smoothly after a simple graphics card update.

If the BIOS says the LAN is enabled try disabling it, booting your machine, then restart and re-enable the LAN. Sometimes turning it off and on again helps.

I guess I'll give that a try before installing the NIC card, I hate opening up my case.

I am getting a Antec power supply best buy had a 550 one for 89.99 with the specific power cord to hook up to my Nvidea video card i have. The tech Guys here at work say antec is good or thermolite

I doubt it's the power supply. It's more likely to be the NIC. Or the PCI slot the NIC is plugged into. You could always try moving the card to a different slot, assuming it is a PCI card. If it's built into the motherboard, that one is obviously not going to work.

Problem has been solved by simply installing an add on NIC, $12 from Newegg and I'm back online. Thanks to everybody for their help and suggestions.

Glad you got it sorted.