Dell problems

[Jim]

I have a Dell Optiplex 7010 that has a couple of problems I'm trying to 
get sorted.   It has Kubuntu 20.04 with 32GB RAM.  The ssd it boots from 
is less than half full.  Over the weekend the Ethernet adapter which is 
on the motherboard started acting up. When I first boot the machine for 
the day, it doesn't detect the Ethernet adapter.  I first replaced the 
cable connecting it to the router, but that didn't bring the network 
back.  I rebooted the machine and it detected the Ethernet adapter.    
Now every time I reboot it, there's no network, and I have to reboot it 
again to the the network.  Any idea what might be causing this?  If the 
Ethernet adapter is going bad, would a USB Ethernet adapter or an 
internal one that uses the PCI slot be better?

Now for the other problem.  The device notifier is supposed to pop up 
showing the storage device I plugged in and give me the option to mount 
it.  Several months ago it started showing every drive in the machine as 
a removable drive and giving me the option to unmount any that are 
mounted, including the drives inside the case.  I looked online for help 
with this and found a change to some config file that would hide those 
internal drives.  A few days ago I swapped out a drive in it and now 
that device notifier doesn't always show drives I attach to the system 
to do backups. I can't remember what config file I changed, so I can't 
undo whatever it was I did months ago.  Does anyone know what I messed up?


Thanks

Jim