Solved No internet after clean Windows installation - missing ethernet

Khangster · Mar 23, 2026

Hi all,

Due to some rather annoying issues with spontaneous reboots, I recently completely removed Gigabyte Control Center and installed essential drivers downloaded from Gigabyte website. The result was that not only did the problems failed to resolve, the ethernet is now missing altogether, though I was still connected to the net via Wi-Fi. After many attempts at rectifying the problems, including changing ethernet cable, rebooting router and switches, checking BIOS to see if ethernet is disabled, I decided to do a clean instal of Windows from USB using media creation tool. The end result is that while successful with the installation, I now completely lack any connection to internet!

Moreover, I'm using my laptop, which is still connected via ethernet LAN to the same router, to connect to the internet. Please see my specs below:

Motherboard	*Gigabyte Z790 UD AX LGA1700 ATX rev 1.2
GPU	*Gigabyte Radeon RX 7900 XTX Gaming OC 24GB GDDR6
CPU	*Intel Core i9 14900KF 24-Core LGA1700 Raptor Lake Processor
Monitor	*QSM Q27FHQS 27" 4K HDR600 FreeSync Premium Pro QLED IPS
Optical drive	*Pioneer BDR212DBK Internal Blu-Ray Drive and Writer
Case	*Fractal Design Define 7 XL Black E-ATX Light Tempered Glass Window
Memory	*Corsair VENGEANCE 64GB (2x32GB) PC5-51200 (6,400MHz) DDR5, CL 32-40-40
CPU cooler	*be quiet! PURE LOOP 2 FX 360mm Liquid CPU Cooler
Storage	*Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB ZP2000GM3A013 Gen4 NVMe M.2 2280-D2 SSD
Storage	*Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB ZP2000GM3A013 Gen4 NVMe M.2 2280-D2 SSD
PSU	*Corsair RM1000e (2023) 1000W 80+ Gold Fully Modular ATX 3.0 & PCIe 5.0
OS	*MS Windows 11 Professional 32/64 bit Full Version

I'm grateful for any advice and suggestion. Please ask any question. Thank you in advance.
K

HeavyHemi · Mar 23, 2026

Do you have any yellow bangs in Device Manager? Did you download and install the LAN driver from Gigabyte?

Khangster · Mar 23, 2026

HeavyHemi said:
Do you have any yellow bangs in Device Manager? Did you download and install the LAN driver from Gigabyte?

Hi mate,
Wow, I have many yellow triangles in Device Manager! I had previously downloaded the GCC onto another USB and installed that after the Windows install. Unfortunately, without internet the GCC cannot install completely. I'll try your suggestion.
Cheers!

NavyLCDR · Mar 23, 2026

You need to look in device manager and see what hardware is missing drivers.

Khangster · Mar 24, 2026

Update: I downloaded and installed all the drivers I could find from Gigabyte website, including the Realtek LAN driver and the Bluetooth and WiFi drivers. Rebooted and still no luck. I then tried installing the GCC on top of all that, but without internet connection it seems not able to do much.

I notice that the link lights on the ethernet port on the PC is dark, while the light on the switch hub is lit. My laptop is running absolutely fine, connected via ethernet without a hitch - which is the reason I still have hair.
With Device Manager, under network adapters I don't see Intel Wi-Fi nor Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller, which are present on my laptop...
Under Other devices: Network Controller, PCI Simple Communications Controller, Realtek BthLeAudio, RtkFilter0, and Unknown device all show question mark, and four shows the yellow exclamations.

Khangster · Mar 25, 2026

Update: I managed to get the Wi-Fi to connect the internet. From there installed the various drivers from Gigabyte Control Center. Now Device Manager is free of questions and exclamations!

Thank you, all!
K

cheaterslick · Mar 25, 2026

Khangster said:
Update: I managed to get the Wi-Fi to connect the internet. From there installed the various drivers from Gigabyte Control Center. Now Device Manager is free of questions and exclamations!

Thank you, all!
K

After you've connected to the internet, you can also right-mouse-click each yellow ! triangle device and select "update driver".

That's how I've dealt with issues like this in the past. I know doing it that way insures that I'm installing the right driver from the internet without using 3rd party software.

hsehestedt · Mar 25, 2026

Now that you have your drivers installed and working, I would like to make a suggestion: Export all your drivers so that you can rapidly and easily reinstall all the drivers again should you ever need to do so.

To do so, follow these steps:

1) Open a command prompt.

2) From the command prompt, run these two commands:

md C:\Drivers_Backup
pnputil /export-driver * C:\Drivers_Backup

3) When the second command has finished (it may take a little while to finish), all your drivers will be backed up in C:\Drivers_Backup. I suggest copying that to a thumb drive or a separate HDD / SSD to keep it safe.

Now, suppose that you need to reinstall those drivers such as right after having performed a clean install of Windows. Do this to reinstall all the drivers:

1) Connect the drive with the backed up drivers to your PC. In this example, I will assume that I just did a clean install of Windows and that my backed-up drivers are on a thumb drive at D:\Drivers_Backup.

2) Open Device Manager and at the top of the device tree, right -click your computer name and select "Add drivers". Select D:\Drivers_Backup as the location to search and check the box to tell it to search all subdirectories. All of your drivers will be installed.

NOTE: This may take a few minutes to finish. The screen may flash and go blank temporarily while the display driver is being installed. This is normal.

3) When done, reboot the system. All drivers should now be installed.

Khangster · Mar 25, 2026

hsehestedt said:
Now that you have your drivers installed and working, I would like to make a suggestion: Export all your drivers so that you can rapidly and easily reinstall all the drivers again should you ever need to do so.

To do so, follow these steps:

1) Open a command prompt.

2) From the command prompt, run these two commands:

md C:\Drivers_Backup
pnputil /export-driver * C:\Drivers_Backup

3) When the second command has finished (it may take a little while to finish), all your drivers will be backed up in C:\Drivers_Backup. I suggest copying that to a thumb drive or a separate HDD / SSD to keep it safe.

Now, suppose that you need to reinstall those drivers such as right after having performed a clean install of Windows. Do this to reinstall all the drivers:

1) Connect the drive with the backed up drivers to your PC. In this example, I will assume that I just did a clean install of Windows and that my backed-up drivers are on a thumb drive at D:\Drivers_Backup.

2) Open Device Manager and at the top of the device tree, right -click your computer name and select "Add drivers". Select D:\Drivers_Backup as the location to search and check the box to tell it to search all subdirectories. All of your drivers will be installed.

NOTE: This may take a few minutes to finish. The screen may flash and go blank temporarily while the display driver is being installed. This is normal.

3) When done, reboot the system. All drivers should now be installed.

Damn! - cheers, mate!

Solved No internet after clean Windows installation - missing ethernet

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