Gurus, Pros, Geeks... Lend Me Your Ears

[front9]

So I've got a problem with my personal computer at home and am at a loss as to how to fix it.

When I left for work in the morning everything was fine. I put the computer on stand by and went to work. When I get back home I am unable to connect to the internet.

I called Cox cable to verify there was no outage- there wasn't. I reset the modem- no help. I can not ping a server. I can not connect to a site. I was even having a problem shutting down & restarting. I had to do a soft-shut down from the power button.
At times the Device Manager shows the network card is working correctly & at other times it shows no driver installed. I have attempted many different ways of installing the ethernet adapter driver from the motherboard CD. I have not been able to get the driver to install completely.

I also did a system restore to a point two days before. It was restored correctly, but still no connectivity.

I am running Firefox browser (but cannot connect through Explorer either) and Windows XP (firewall turned on).

I really don't know what it could be.
A few of my ideas are:
Spyware
Virus
Faulty Ethernet port on motherboard

My next step is to get a new network card and see if that works.
Any other ideas???
:confused:

[stevehayes01]

Disable the Ethernet adapter in the bios and boot into XP. Once you get into XP go into Device Manager and verify that the NIC is removed from the Hardware list. Reboot the machine and go into XP one more time just to make sure that all traces of the NIC are gone. Reboot the machine again and go into the BIOS and re-enable the NIC and boot into windows. XP should find the adapter and reinstall it from scratch and this should take care of your issue. If not grab any spare NIC you can find and slap it in and see if you get link after installing it. If you do then you have a faulty onboard NIC on your Mobo and you can just disable it and keep the PCI card Nic in. This happens on Dell's with built in Nic's all the time ( I support 10,000 of them so I see it daily).

[anothercoolJTI]

Gurus, Pros, Geeks... Lend Me Your Ears

Dont ya mean "EYES"....?...lol j/k

[front9]

Disable the Ethernet adapter in the bios and boot into XP. Once you get into XP go into Device Manager and verify that the NIC is removed from the Hardware list. Reboot the machine and go into XP one more time just to make sure that all traces of the NIC are gone. Reboot the machine again and go into the BIOS and re-enable the NIC and boot into windows. XP should find the adapter and reinstall it from scratch and this should take care of your issue. If not grab any spare NIC you can find and slap it in and see if you get link after installing it. If you do then you have a faulty onboard NIC on your Mobo and you can just disable it and keep the PCI card Nic in. This happens on Dell's with built in Nic's all the time ( I support 10,000 of them so I see it daily).

thanks for the tips. i will try it out when i get home.
so any possibility of spyware affecting the system this way, or any recent viruses found lately?

[stevehayes01]

Not likely but always possible... THe only other cause I can really think of is the Firewall in XP but thats another story...Post tonight if it works and if not we will explore other options.

[front9]

Not likely but always possible... THe only other cause I can really think of is the Firewall in XP but thats another story...Post tonight if it works and if not we will explore other options.

many thanks. i will post tonight if it works. if not i will post from work tomorrow. :tup:

[front9]

many thanks. i will post tonight if it works. if not i will post from work tomorrow. :tup:

well, did all the bios stuff you mentioned and no worky.
so went and bought a new nic and installed it and voila, i'm writing this update from home. :)

thanks for the tips and quick reply. :tup:

[Ghett-O]

piece of pie, easy as cake ... not bad

[stevehayes01]

Glad to see you got it cleared up!!