Problem with Ethernet controller in Acer Aspire 6920

Hello there, I have an Acer Aspire 6920 laptop which is installed with Windows Vista on it. I have a Linksys wireless router from which I access the Internet on the Laptop. Nowadays the laptop is behaving very weird. I am not able to connect the laptop to the network at all. Whenever I try to connect the laptop to the network, the system gives error saying Problem with Ethernet controller. As I am not having knowledge about networking I am unable to solve the problem. Also sometime the laptop give BootMGR missing while booting. So I want to know how to solve Problem with Ethernet controller in Acer Aspire 6920. Please help.

I think the Windows installation on your laptop has become corrupt due to which it is creating problems while booting and while connecting the laptop to the network. BootMGR missing is a typical sign of operating system failure which can be solved by installing the operating system again. If you have the install disk of the operating system then insert it and boot the system from it. Install the operating system again by formatting the drive and then see if the system is giving the same error or not. Before reinstalling the operating system again take the back up of the data which is important.

First check if the router is configured properly to handle the Wireless connections. Sometimes the configuration of the network or the devices changes due to some problems in the network. If the configuration of the network changes then the devices are not able to connect to the network. Hence check the configuration of the network devices. Go to the Network preferences of all the devices and then do the necessary settings and save them. After changing the configuration check if the laptop is able to connect to the network or not.

Check if the drivers which are installed for the network adapter. If the drivers are not installed properly then the associated device dont work properly. Check if the installed drivers are working properly or not. To check the drivers, right click on MY computer and then select Manage. Now go to Device Manager and then Highlight the Network adapter and then check if there are any caution signs. If there are caution signs then perform troubleshooting procedure. If troubleshooting does not help try to reinstall the drivers and update them.

Try connecting the laptop to the router using Wired connection. To connect the router to the laptop using Wired connection, you will need a Straight ethernet cable. Connect one end of the cable to the laptop and other end to empty port on the router. Now open the network connection and right click on LAN. Now go to TCP/IP properties and Select "Obtain IP address automatically". Enter the DNS and default gateway which will be provided by the ISP. Once all the settings are entered, save the settings and then see if the laptop connects to the network or not.

Every Network card is configured to have a software interface which can be used to ping the Network card itself. The software interface is used for testing the card. The IP address of the software interface is 127.0.0.0 for all the NIC's. Ping this IP address from the command prompt and then see the errors in the packets sent and received. Ideally there should be no errors. If there are errors then the NIC is faulty and needs to be replaced.