Vista - Network adapter not found, no driver can be installed

I recently bought this rig:

Asus P5E VM HDMI (Bios 0504)
Intel E8400
Kingston 4gb

I did a clean install of Vista x64 and installed the drivers that came with the motherboard. But when I tried to install the LAN driver it said: "Installer can't find Atheros L1 ethernet controller on your system". I just can not install the driver for it because the adapter isn't found. When I look in the device manager I also can't find it and there isn't a 'network' tab. I tried manually adding hardware, but when I did hit the 'have disk' option and select the driver .inf file it asked to select the network adapter from the list, but that list was empty.

What I tried:
- Reinstall Vista
- Downloaded the newest driver from the Asus website for this mobo
- Disable and enable the 'onboard LAN' option within the BIOS

Nothing worked. I also used Everest hardware tracking tool to look for the network adapter but it couldn't find it.

Does anybody know any solution or can anybody explain the problem? Is the motherboard broken??

I could try updating the BIOS to the newest version but that might hurt my warranty?

Very basic question (first question in troubleshooting PCs - Is it plugged in? ), is the adaptor enabled in the bios? If not then windows will not see it.

Lets also not rule out a bad NiC onboard for this motherboard, it's happened before and could be the issue here. If you have access to windowsXP you might wanna try a quick install of that and see if it sees the NiC.

Thanks for the replies!

It is onboard LAN > Asus P5E VM HDMI. Onboard LAN is enabled.

I am going to install XP now, with NiC you mean ipconfig??

NiC = Network Interface Card also known as Ethernet or Network Card.

hi peacemaker,

just noticed that your motherboard manufacturer offers a diagnostic tool for this motherboard - PC Probe, You may want to see if that can give you any further info on the NIC,

I'd also try dropping their support an email to see if you have a known issue.

Even if its not helpful now, if it comes down a faulty motherboard and having to get a replacement, it documents that you had the problem at this time, well within warranty.

Not sure of your location but in some countries the responsibility for warranty varies by time.

Well I already have sent Asus an email 2 days ago, no answer yet. But in the meanwhile I tried searching for possible solutions on the net, and I posted on this forum. But I´ll try Probe next! It didn´t work on XP either unfortunately...

I'm afraid it does sound like a physical issue with the hardware. The only problem with "all in One solutions" (I use on-board everything myself) is if one item fails the whole thing has to be replaced, and of course you can't test by replacement
Contact your supplier first and see what they have to say

Good luck

Probe says: Internal connector type: none

I did contact my supplier and I'm waiting for Asus to respond.

Thanks for the help!

Hi I have the same mobo as you and I have had the same problem as you. My story, all was working well until I downloaded the ms update that killed my USB adapter, had to do a clean install but chose not to install the updates, I found out which update was the cause of the problem and installed the rest, all is now back to normal, if you want to know the update number I can give it to you. this is the only thing that worked for me I now set regular restore points and fingers crossed, all now appears to be OK. steve