PC can't connect to the internet

[Antares8001]

Ok, recently a friend asked me if I could help him because he was having some issues with his PC.

The PC was unable to connect to the his dorms wireless network, I suspected the issue to be on the driver side or perhaps the cheap USB wireless dongle that he used had some issues. 

So I made sure drivers were in order and tried again... which didn't work, then I added a PCIe wireless adapter card, which also didn't work even though other PCIe devices work perfectly fine. 

Weirdly enough it also won't connect via a LAN cable. I also tried an SSD with different windows and Linux installs, in case there were some issues with Windows and  then updated the bios, because at that point why the hell not. We also tried all of the above with different networks. This leads me to suspect that the issue somehow lies with the mainboard, however I have never encountered an otherwise working mainboard causing connection errors, especially since neither USB or PCIe adapters seem to work in spite of the board working perfectly with other USB and PCIe devices. The mainboard is a proprietary ACER LGA 1150 board, so it wouldn't be the end of the world to replace it but I would still like to find a fix if possible. I should probably also clarify that the PC recognizes devices and finds networks but can't connect to them. After scouring the internet for a bit also didn't provide me with any answers I thought I'd ask here.

 

[Antares8001]

1 minute ago, Benji said:

If you open up a wireless hotspot with your phone, does that work?

I also tried that but ran into the same issues I had when I tried to connect to a regular wireless network

[Antares8001]

Just now, Benji said:

Kind of sounds like messed-up Windows settings. I assume you are running Windows 10? Did you try resetting it to factory defaults? Because the likelihood that two network adapters are dead is not high. But other devices do work on the network, right?

As I said I already replaced the OS drive with a different one that had a fresh windows 10 install and I even gave Ubuntu a shot. I also verified both network adapters on my PC and other devices seem to work on the network.

[Antares8001]

He said he bought it in late 2014 or early 2015, 

[Antares8001]

it's a TC-605

[Jinu]

Lets troubleshoot one issue at a time. First issue is you cannot connect to the network using the cable and ethernet port. What happens when you connect the ethernet wire to the Laptop.

1. Does it recognize the cable, give the laptop and IP

2. If it does give you an IP is the gateway ip also populated

3. If gateway ip is populated can you ping the gateway/main router from you laptop

4. If so can you access the Admin page of the main router from your laptop.

 

If your answer is yes to all of the above then there is no issue with the port.

[Antares8001]

18 minutes ago, Jinu said:

Lets troubleshoot one issue at a time. First issue is you cannot connect to the network using the cable and ethernet port. What happens when you connect the ethernet wire to the Laptop.

1. Does it recognize the cable, give the laptop and IP

2. If it does give you an IP is the gateway ip also populated

3. If gateway ip is populated can you ping the gateway/main router from you laptop

4. If so can you access the Admin page of the main router from your laptop.

 

If your answer is yes to all of the above then there is no issue with the port.

I am sorry I am a bit confused, now I'll freely admit I am not nearly as experienced with network issues as I am in other PC related fields but I fail to see how this would verify the ethernet port of his PC.

[Jinu]

My apologies. I mean to say do this on his computer and not laptop. I am assuming from your description that when the cable is connected to the PC also he cannot connect to the network.

[Antares8001]

Oh ok, well only the IPv4 Ip adress is given, while the gateway IP is blank. The Pc also doesn't show up in the router settings.

[Antares8001]

OK so far nothing has worked, and I still had an old 1150 system lying around, so i've decided so just switch out the boards, or rather every other component, seeing as both were proprietary boards that wouldn't fit into each other's cases. Wouldn't have been a big issue to leave it like that because my 1150 system was only used for emulation anyway, so it didn't necessarily need internet. However now it turns out that apparently the RAM was somehow causing issues with the acer board??? For some reason now that the board has different RAM it'll connect to the internet just fine and the issue reappeared the second I reinstalled the old RAM. While that makes absolutely no sense to me, as of now both machines can connect to the internet without problems and I have decided to just leave them like that, because frankly the board really isn't worth the headache at this point. But thanks for everyone's suggestions.