Desktop with LAN connection, must do restart for Internet connection

Hey folks; I've encountered a strange problem and have tried a lot of things to solve it. I have an older desktop running Win7 Ultimate w/ SP1. It worked fine for years but for the past year, when I boot up, I don't get connected to the internet. I get the red x in the LAN icon on bottom right of screen. I found that if I do a restart of the computer it makes the connection and gets internet.
I have tried many things:
Release, flush and renew dns from command prompt
System scan for errors or corruption
Run repair for Win 7
Update drivers for all out of date drivers
Reload the entire Win 7 program and SP1
Replace the old ehternet cable with new CAT6 cable
Update the software for the ZTE router
Update the software for the Intel Network Adapter
Finally I have installed a new Seagate baracuda SSD as my main C:\ drive to try to speed up the boot.

None of this has worked. I still have to restart my computer EVERY time I turn it on in order to get internet connection.
Note: The router also works for wireless and all the laptops and tablets and cell phones have no problem. The only problem is my LAN connected desktop.

Anyone have any suggestions other than scrap it all and buy a new computer?

Set a static IP it's likely a slow DHCP when it first starts run ipconfig /all and see if it gets an IP correctly

a few thoughts......

could be the lan driver is not fully loading until the warm boot happens, so to make sure the lan port gets power all the time go into device manager, right click on the lan adapter and uncheck "allow the system to save power by turning off this device"

to make sure you get a fresh driver load every boot up, go into bios and disable fast boot

try a different port on the router

also try booting with your lan cable connected directly to the modem, bypassing the router, just to see what happens

could be the lan adapter is going bad and the bios does not see it on a cold boot. If so its a $10 fix
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