Code 10 on an on board ethernet card

Basically I can't see the network adapter in my network devices and when I go to the device manager theres a yellow icon with an exclamation mark near the adapter and when I press properties it gives me the code 10 error and says something like "the driver was installed correctly however windows encountered a problem when trying to run it"

This is on windows Vista

the card is on ASUS P5QL SE iP43 Socket 775 6 channel audio ATX Motherboard

and its a

Network adapter - Realtek RTL8111C - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet

anyone have any suggestions? I read a few similiar threads where people say that this is a common issue but can't find a good thread with a solution

 

Did anything happen before this started? Like virus removal? Windows install or repair? System restore? Or everything was normal one day, then messed up the next? Can you check the Event Viewer and see if any errors are listed, and, if so, can you please post the details of the errors relating to the ethernet adapter? To access the event viewer: right click Computer > Manage > Event Viewer; look in the System section, and possibly the Application section....

 

Hey The pc is my mums and it's on the other end of the country so getting error report will be difficult. We tried system restore, to like a month back and it didn't work

basically what happened, we had a wireless pci card in the pc. it worked great, but then we took it out and are trying to use ethernet. Is there a good driver cleaner software to do a good reinstall of the drivers? or should we just get a pci card?

 

Try this: go to Programs & Features and uninstall the ethernet drivers if they're listed. Reboot the PC. Vista has a way trying to 'force' a reinstall of the drivers automatically and it can be hard to cancel, but if you can stop, it, do so. If not, not a big deal. Then install the drivers from this direct link. Then reboot the PC when finished. If that doesn't work, it may be easier and quicker to simply buy a PCI ethernet card. They're very inexpensive and easy to install. Since you don't have hands-on access to the PC, the PCI card might be the easiest way to go, but if it doesn't work, then we'll know there's a Windows issue....
Good luck!