I have an HP p6-2375 purchased on the cheap from the now defunct Comet chain in the UK. I dumped Windows 8 and installed Linux Cinnamon. This installed fine. My problem is that I can't get the Ethernet cable to work. The computer works okay on wireless, but shows no response at all to the Ethernet cable. I cannot even get the familiar cable connexion status icon to appear. I fear this maybe a problem on the main board. The Ethernet cable works fine on my Toshiba laptop using Linux Mint 14, and on a Windows computer. Has anyone bright ideas on this, or have I got a problem on the mother board?

Hi there,

usually the RJ45 jacks have built-in LEDs, often a green and a yellow one. Typically, the green one should light up, indicating that there's a physically working connection ("LINK"), when you plug in a network cable with its other end connected to e.g. a working switch. This check doesn't even require a working LAN driver on the software side, let alone a proper IP setup.
If you don't see a green LED come on, the interface is very probably dead.

What does the output of ifconfig say? Has eth0 been recognized at all?
If not, what does lspci tell? Is the LAN adapter listed at all?
Could the LAN adapter be disabled by the BIOS setup?

[X] Doc CPU