So, when plugging in an ethernet cable, the light on the back of the PC is green but Wifi is still being used. Ethernet doesn’t even get recognized. I tried to trouble shoot this a bunch of ways like reinstalling LAN drivers for my motherboard, unplugging and plugging the cable back in, etc.

When going into device manager, the ethernet controller device only shows up under HIDDEN devices. When inspecting the properties, it says “Currently, this hardware device is not connected to the computer (Code 45).” The device is very much plugged in.

So I moved onto to BIOS to see if my Intel LAN controller was disabled, but it wasn’t. But i tried disabling it, then saving and resetting, and then enabling, and saving and resetting and that somehow worked? My PC recognized ethernet after that. But the next day my PC was back to not using ethernet.

Wondering why this was happening and if there’s a more permanent fix.

Have you enabled the Ethernet port?

Try going to device manager and unistalling the LAN controller then restart PC

Check what model Motherboard you have, go to whichever is the appropriate website for your motherboard and find the drivers section (usually under support)

There is a chance there are ethernet drivers listed there. Download and install them. Hope this helps

Find out if there's known issues with the LAN on Motherboard (LOM) for your system.

I have known system models to ship with faulty LOM requiring an expansion card to have a functional NIC. The vendor blocked the dodgy Broadcom LOM NIC ports with rubber bungs.

The LOM may be disabled by open-firnware intended to give just the minimal support needed for Linux open-boot. But you would have mentioned if the BIOS firmware didn't look like the vendors?

Ground-loops can damage NICs.

This is not an exhaustive list.

Driver. It shouldn’t be in the hidden drivers

So physically the computer does recognize ethernet it's not the PC's fault.

Something hid the ethernet, were you trying to tweak performance at some point in time? Are you using a Wi-Fi driver that likes to be dominant in all things and force the Wi-Fi active?

That you found the ethernet is hidden suggests that something did it again that software/os/something ....

If you're confident you have all the drivers downloaded for both the ethernet and the wireless, uninstall all of your network and tell it to remove the drivers and software for it.

Restart the computer, and it will come up and identify it sees these devices. Start off with your wired connection, install the drivers for those and see if it works.

Then add back the Wi-Fi.

Please note, that I'm not taking into consideration if you've done anything to do USB networked devices, Bluetooth Network devices, or any of the killer app for Wi-Fi stuff that at best outside of professional hands does nothing but add frustration and s*** to your networking.