Nuked onboard ethernet?

[blue]

I'm puzzled as to how I did this...well not really. But anyway, I was playing Civilization 4, and being the excellently stable program it is, my machine locked up. Front power button wasn't working to kill it, so I hit the case power supply switch. Reboot, no internet. Cable modem looks fine, showing connectivity, but no activity. Ethernet port looks fried, no blinking lights, but Windows still picks it up. Anyway, went to Staples and bought me a 10 dollar network card, works fine. It just pisses me off...Why would that kill my onboard ethernet? Shorted it maybe?

[Pau11y]

Yeah, I find the ports on things...usb rj45, rj11, firewire are the weakest point in any connex. They get cooked and nothing else and the device still works, just no way out. It really does pisses you off sometimes, a super high grade NIC that has a port cooked! If you can solder, I'd say take the one off the $10 card and stick it on the onboard, provided it's not in a stack, along w/ a couple of usb ports...

Edit: oh, you might want to check the soldering on the MoBo if it is a stack. Sometimes it's as simple as a weak solder...

[binary visions]

Well, sucks that you cooked it, but at least nothing else went in the process. Like Pau11y said, you can take a close look at the connection to the motherboard, sometimes something just pulls loose and it's obvious. If you're handy, you can solder it back on. Don't do it if you've got no soldering experience though - no point in making things worse when a $10 NIC solves the problem.

[blue]

I have a wee bit of soldering experience, but I think I'm over it...unless someday I need that PCI slot. :p