Hello,
I just got a Dell XPS 8300 and the LAN does not work. When I got it, the wireless drivers were installed and appeared to be functioning although I couldn't connect to any of the signals it was picking up. I have an ethernet cord plugged into the back of the computer from a router and this connection does not work at all. I know the ethernet connection is good because it works with other computers that I have had hooked up to it. I went to the device manager and the wireless network adapter was showing up, but there were no other unknown devices and no ethernet device. I did a search for hardware changes and the ethernet device was not found. I also looked at the back of the computer and the ethernet device does not flicker as it normally does when it is working. In fact it is not lit up at all.
I tried doing a fresh install of Windows and went through the work of reinstalling the drivers. I used drivers from the resource CD along with updated drivers from the Dell website. When the resource CD went to detect devices for my PC, neither the wireless or the ethernet device were detected. I did install the drivers for the Broadcom ethernet device anyways even though it wasn't detected. I left the wireless drivers uninstalled for now. I rebooted the computer and the LAN/ethernet still does not work. There is an unknown network adapter, but I believe it is for the wireless device. I tried to update the driver for it and searched the folder with the Dell drivers and it could not find a driver. If the unknown device was the ethernet/LAN port it would've found the Broadcom drivers that I just installed.
I wanted to also note that I flashed the PC to the latest bios A01 to A03 with no effect. The bios update installed correctly, but there was some error message that flashed really quick about something not being found (I want to say it was 'ME' or something). Anyways when I reboot the computer and press F2 to get into the bios, it says that it is running A03 so I assume it installed correctly. I could try taking out the CMOS battery for a while, and then reinstall it and see if that has any effect. Other than that I am at a loss right now. I ran the integrated diagnostics and that has not found any errors. I'm disturbed that the ethernet device isn't showing up in the device manager at all.
Let me know if you have any suggestions,
Thanks!