No Ethernet conenction

Help:
I have just got home from a month on the road and am unable to connect to the Internet.
When I boot up my PC it tells me that it is unable to connect to the Network. i am using a wired system trhough a switch. My secnd PC works fine so the problem is not there.
In Devvice MAnager I have a realtek pcie gbe family controller, whose properties seem fine. I have tried disabling then re-enabling the driver, to no avail.
I have tried a different cable, but no light shows on the back of the machine.
Any suggestions?

no lights on the adapter could be trouble. Did you lose power while you were away?

Yes, I have done this. The led's are on the motherboard. Device MAnager says that the connection is working properly
is working perfectly

The machine was shut down. A motherboard issue?

Have you treid bypassing the switch while testing the connection? Cycle modem and PC then plug in straight from the modem?

tonybridge said:

The machine was shut down. A motherboard issue?

Power failures can cause all sorts of issues. If you're ethernet adapter isn't lighting up when plugging a live cable in, you might be looking at a failure.

Pretty much waht I thought.....time to upgrade my trusty Q6600 to a ???

For what it's worth - it sounds like you have an onboard NIC - if so it can be disabled in the BIOS. Try checking that and cycling it. I also installed a brand new Dell PC for a client and it wouldn't connect no matter what I tried. After talking to tech support (which I never do) the guy said he'd heard of situations where changing the speed from 100MB or Auto in the Network Adapter properties to 10MB would fix it. Sure enough it worked - crazy.
I agree, w/brady - no lights means no one's home. They should light up no matter what if a cable is inserted that is connected to another powered device.