Intel Ethernet Network Adapter Doesn't work - Ubuntu 16.04

Question

I've just installed a fresh Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on a new Desktop computer and it won't connect to the internet through a wired connection.

I've seen several answers to similar questions, e.g. in:

Ethernet connection Issues on Ubuntu 16.04

Why Wired Internet is not working in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS?

Ubuntu 16.04 Ethernet issues

And several others, but none of their proposed solutions worked for me. I have an ASUS Z270 motherboard and outputs of standard diagnostics are:

ip a

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
   valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enp5s0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN group default qlen 1000
link/ether 2c:56:dc:39:d7:91 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

ip link

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enp5s0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 2c:56:dc:39:d7:91 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

ifconfig

enp5s0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 2c:56:dc:39:d7:91  
      UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
      RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
      RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
      Memory:df300000-df31ffff 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
      inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
      UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
      RX packets:2634 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:2634 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:1 
      RX bytes:195404 (195.4 KB)  TX bytes:195404 (195.4 KB)

sudo lshw -C Network

*-network               
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: I211 Gigabit Network Connection
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
       logical name: enp5s0
       version: 03
       serial: 2c:56:dc:39:d7:91
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi msix pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=igb driverversion=5.3.0-k firmware=0. 6-1 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
       resources: irq:17 memory:df300000-df31ffff ioport:c000(size=32) memory:df320000-df323fff
  *-network UNCLAIMED
       description: Ethernet controller
       product: Ethernet Connection (5) I219-V
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 1f.6
       bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.6
       version: 00
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:dd100000-dd11ffff

cat /etc/network/interfaces

# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

lspci -nnk | grep -A9 Network

05:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation I211 Gigabit Network Connection [8086:1539] (rev 03)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. I211 Gigabit Network Connection [1043:85f0]
Kernel driver in use: igb
Kernel modules: igb
06:00.0 USB controller [0c03]: ASMedia Technology Inc. Device [1b21:2142]
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:8732]
Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd

dmesg | grep igb

[    0.867051] igb: Intel(R) Gigabit Ethernet Network Driver - version 5.3.0-k
[    0.867052] igb: Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Intel Corporation.
[    0.896603] igb 0000:05:00.0: added PHC on eth0
[    0.896603] igb 0000:05:00.0: Intel(R) Gigabit Ethernet Network Connection
[    0.896604] igb 0000:05:00.0: eth0: (PCIe:2.5Gb/s:Width x1) 2c:56:dc:39:d7:91
[    0.896605] igb 0000:05:00.0: eth0: PBA No: FFFFFF-0FF
[    0.896606] igb 0000:05:00.0: Using MSI-X interrupts. 2 rx queue(s), 2 tx queue(s)
[    0.905377] igb 0000:05:00.0 enp5s0: renamed from eth0

sudo modprobe e1000e && dmesg | grep e100

[136118.178325] e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 3.2.6-k
[136118.178326] e1000e: Copyright(c) 1999 - 2015 Intel Corporation.

Would appreciate your help on why this won't connect... Thanks!

Answer 1

One solution to the problem that I found while solving something else - Installing Ubuntu 16.10 does the trick.

I saw that for another computer model, the Intel NUC, it was recommended to use Ubuntu 16.10 because 16.04 doesn't support Kaby Lake CPUs very well:

https://communities.intel.com/thread/114411

http://nucblog.net/2017/04/kaby-lake-i7-nuc-conclusions/

So I checked and this computer also has i7 7700K which is of the Kaby Lake series, i.e. does not work well with Ubuntu 16.04.

Installed 16.10 and everything worked properly.

Thanks for the help :)

Answer 2

There are multiple versions of the I219-V Intel ethernet controller. The OP must have had an earlier version. Later versions are not supported by Ubuntu 16.10. A solution that should work for all versions of the controller is to follow the e1000e base driver instructions from Intel. In this case you can continue running the 16.04 LTS release.

The Intel instructions did not state the requirement to install make and gcc. The steps I followed were:

# Download e1000e tar file from https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/15817
sudo apt install make gcc
tar xvfz e1000e-*.tar.gz
cd e1000e-*/src
sudo make install
sudo rmmod e1000e  # It's ok if this has an error
sudo modprobe e1000e

If this works then you will see messages at the end of /var/log/kern.log setting up the associated ethernet interface and the new interface will be listed by,

ip a