Windows 7 - Windows 7 - No Internet connection found

Hello. This is a problem that has happened to me a couple of times. Everyone else has connections in my house, even Wifi. I was cleaning my computer and when I was finished, it wasn't working. The thing is I wasn't touching anything besides my front computer fans. What could be the problem? When I go to device manager, it doesn't even show my router. All it shows is some NVidia nForce which doesn't have to do anything with my connection. One thing I do notice is that there is an "unknown device", which I think is my router. I can't update or do anything else because I have no connection. I even reinstalled my computer which usually fixed it. If anyone has advice, please help. Thanks!

Please fill in your system specs as best as you can. With that information, we can start a course of action. My suggestion would be go to the mobo's website and download the latest chipset driver and LAN driver.

Win 7 Home 64bit
2GB RAM
8800 GTS 512MB
E8400 3.0GHz
2 596GB Hard drives

Sorry for not listing it in the first place. I can't download the latest drivers because it doesn't show any connections.

You can download the drives on the same computer you are posting to this forum. Put them on a flash drive or burn to CD then take them to the failing computer.

Also, what is the make and model number of the computer? You can save your system specs via User CP, Edit System Specs.

Have you checked/replaced the Ethernet cable? Moved it to a different port on the router? Power cycled all network devices?

Ok I have installed the chipset and nForce driver and still nothing. I moved the cables around too.

How about a system restore to a point in time before you had this problem.

By "Your router" in Device Manager I take it you're talking about your network adapter? What are your power settings for the network adapter? Next time you have you device listed in Device Manager right-click / Properties / Power Management / uncheck: "Allow computer to turn off device" (or something like that). See if that helps.

You can download / save the driver(s) for the network adapter anyplace on your computer and just point windows to the stored location when installing for the "unknown device". Don't need internet access for that.

Just wondering does this happen when you only cleaning the compute, doing something similar or is it totally random?