Internet Problem

[Serephino]

Okay, I'll start from the beginning.  Last night before I went to bed I started an adware scan because my system was running slow.  I guess it found some malware.  My boyfriend was still up, so he removed it for me, but then everything went haywire.  It wasn't reading the processor right, and it wasn't detecting the ethernet card (internet connection). 

He wiped everything and reinstalled windows.  It still will not read the onboard ethernet connection (it's a Dell), and he can't install/update any drivers for it because of said lack of connection.   

[Irolon]

Is there any way you might be able to download drivers with another computer and installing them by using a USB drive or somesuch?

[Serephino]

He just tried that.  It won't read them.  It keeps saying he doesn't have an ethernet card, which it does, the onboard one it came with.  It's also giving him a system fan failure error when he boots it up.

[GothicFires]

if it is a dell then you might as well go buy an Ethernet card. I reinstalled windows on my mom's dell a few years ago as part of maintenance and couldn't get the internal ethernet card to work either, not after using the drivers that came with the machine, not even after downloading them on another computer from the website and transferring them over. Fortunately there was a ethernet card in the cabinet that my ex step-father had purchased so I replaced it.

Then a few months ago I reformatted my friend's dell... yeah I forgot. Disks that came with the computer a no go, downloading from the internet, no go. I told her to get rid of the computer because she had another one.

Both of these computers were windows xp and fairly old though.

[Irolon]

What drivers is he installing? It seems to me the drivers for the motherboard are the ones he needs.

To be perfectly safe, can he check the BIOS-settings to see if for some wacky reason, the onboard LAN is switched off? I had that problem a few weeks back.

[Serephino]

He spent all night screwing around with the bios.  He installed all the drivers that came with it, but unfortunately, since it says it has no ethernet card, it won't connect to update anything...

We were talking about getting another card.  It has a slot for it.  Right now it has a wireless card we put in it when we got it, but that won't work either.  Of course, it broke a while ago. 

Any of you smart computer people have any thoughts about the fan failure?  Will it need a new fan too?

[Angel Fire]

It sounds like the internal ethernet card is shot so I would say that it would be best to replace the wireless card with the new ethernet card.  Just make sure that when you install the new ethernet card that you disable the internal one in Windows.  Ethernet cards are pretty cheap.  They don't cost more than 20 dollars usually so that would be the best way to go.

The big question that I have is... even though the computer thinks there is a fan failure, are the fans physically running?  It would also help to know what model of Dell computer that you have so that maybe someone that is a smarter computer person than I am can help you a LOT better!

[Serephino]

Yes, the fans are running, which is the weird part.  It's a Dell Inspiron 580. 

[Angel Fire]

Sounds like BIOS is not recognizing the fans.  That is a minor problem compared to what you are really dealing with, though.

If the new ethernet card doesn't fix the problem, than it might be best to look towards getting a new computer.

My personal thoughts.... An old (And cheap, no offense) model that Dell is making "unavailable" through their website in the Inspirion 580 means that it will probably cost more to try to fix your computer than to get a new one.  The compareable model that Dell is selling is the Inspirion 620.  If you plan on spending more than 350 dollars to fix the comp that you have now and you have nothing totally valuable to save that you can't live without... than I say put your old computer into the scrap heap and spend the 350 dollars to get a new comp that totally works.