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Go into your BIOS and disable Wake On Lan (WOL).
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Boot Windows, start Device Manager, right click your network card (probably Intel I217-V) and disable all WOL settings there too.
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Completely power down the PC (don't just reboot) and then try booting Linux.
this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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I recently had this problem while dualbooting mint and windows: windows was shutting down the LAN hardware somehow.
Had to disable fast startup (in windows, but I recall some Motherboards have also "fast boot" in BIOS as well?) and also in windows' LAN adapter settings a power saving option.
This is the thread that helped me: https://askubuntu.com/a/879818
A shot in the dark, but hopefully it helps.
Fast boot in BIOS is about skipping tests, it's usually safe to leave alone
Ah, thanks! Didn't know that. I guess it wont have an effect then and can be ignored.
Edit: fixed up wording.
"Will not connect to the internet" is probably too vague to troubleshoot. Isolate exactly what part is failing. Is the device receiving an IP address? Are you able to ping anything on the local network? Are you able to ping a remote IP address? If you aren't receiving an IP address, is DHCP running? Can you statically set your IP and ping out? Is there another switchport you can try on the router?
I saw earlier you mentioned it's an Optiplex, so I'm assuming this is an onboard NIC.
I've never had an onboard NIC not work out-of-the-box in Linux. Wifi, sure, but usually just certain chipsets with proprietary/closed firmware. Dell usually uses Intel NICs and they're usually pretty solid and well supported.
Check to make sure that the NIC is enabled in BIOS.
If you have/had Windows on this PC, did it work there?
Does the NIC show in lspci or ip a ?
Try an external USB NIC. Or an internal PCIe one if you're comfortable with that.
I think a start would be to tell us which version of which distro you are using. Also, are you talking about LAN or WIFI?
i have tried basically every mainstream distro and their forks besides base Arch, and i used the most current version for all of them, besides Clear Linux which i used the version from June 2nd for. i also mean LAN, i don't have a card for WiFi.
I would start in /var/log/messages, find any errors related. It sounds like a NIC issue..
Try finding out if it received an IP address, if the driver is loaded or if there are any error messages in dmesg. You might also want to give more information. Which ethernet card? ~~Which version of Linux are you running?~~ And there seem to be some similar reports on Reddit and in some Linux forums. I couldn't find a solution, though. Maybe you just want to buy a cheap new network card.
Before you give up, maybe also try either a USB network adapter or (if your PC has space) an actual network card. Some of those can be incredibly affordable.
Have you tried resetting the NIC or loading/unloading the NIC module manually?
i have reset it, but i have not loaded it manually. I'll try that, thank you.
I have had Windows control the power setting of the card before, there were some settings in windows to alter how power was handled for the network adapter. Also some dell BIOSes have power settings for the mono/network that you can alter if its acting weirdly.
Model of the machine or the NIC/WiFi module would be useful.
it is a Dell optiplex 9020
What's the IP address (and related info, gateway and dns) you get on linux and what is the one in Windows?