Anyone up for helping with a computer problem?

[haltz]

OK, I'm not so computer literate, which will be apparent shortly and brings us to this cry for help.

I've recently purchased a new Mac router. Print wirelessly, N network, blah blah blah. Sounds great, and you can tell a serious difference in performance and range from the POS that Comcast gave me.

So I connect the new router and I'm setting up all the stuff, which is of course a breeze on the Apple, and my Dell Dimension (running XP) I can only assume just goes haywire in the other room. It had a USB wireless adapter, also from Comcast, that I was using at that point, because there wasn't a great way to put the old router over by my desk.

So I go into the other room thinking I'm going to configure something or whatever to be able to use the PC, and the screen is black with only the blinking cursor in the upper left. Like a blank DOS page I guess. So I restart it a couple of times, and each time it just cycles between the startup stuff and the blank screen. I can't get to the boot menu, again, for whatever reason, so I decide that I should remove the USB device since it's the only external hardware. Well, that works, computer starts up fine. If I were to put it in right now the computer would die and start doing its crazy cycle thing however.

I decide that I've had enough of this and spend part of today running the appropriate wiring so that I can have the new router by the printer in the desktop area, etc. Stands to reason that I would just want to hardline the PC since it's going to be right there at this point. Well, I get everything set up, plug it in and nothing.

I go to the network connections to try and repair something or get a new IP address or whatever I need to do and there is nothing there. It's just blank. Looking in the Device Manager I see that "Ethernet Controller" has one of those yellow question marks, and that sounds to me like it could be the problem. (If this sounds familiar, that means you caught the 20 minutes in between my last frustration with installing a new HD and figuring out what was going on and taking the thread down).

I've tried to use all the Windows CDs I have to install the driver and make this question mark go away, but that doesn't seem to be working. I can only look on the internet from my laptop, and even then I have no idea what I'm looking for. Plus, I'm scared that even if I found what I wanted that I wouldn't be able to download/burn it and get it to the PC. I've tried tech support and google, and I really just have no idea. Other than turning every thing off and on a few times, it's done no good.

God, that was long probably. Thanks in advance to anyone that actually read that and bothers to respond.

[paskal]

Try this:

Go to the 'Start' menu then click 'Run'
Type in 'cmd' and hit return
In the new window, type: ipconfig /release
Hit return
Then type: ipconfig /renew
Hit return
See if the status has changed at all.

[haltz]

Thanks paskal, unfortunately I don't think that helped things.

[paskal]

how about just typing in 'ipconfig' and paste what it says here.

[haltz]

how about just typing in 'ipconfig' and paste what it says here.

"Windows IP Configuration"

No IP, DNS, gateway or whatever else is usually there, that's all it says.

[New Pagodi]

It sounds like the driver for your NIC is corrupt. Try selecting it in the device manager, right clicking, and selecting uninstall.



Then reboot. That will force windows to reload it from the driver cache and hopefully clear things up.

[haltz]

NP, thanks. I don't seem to have a Network Adapters tab, which seems odd. Unless it's "Other Devices" which has the yellow question mark. I'd take a screenshot, but that's easier said than done at the moment.

[New Pagodi]

If your ethernet card is listed in other devices instead of network adapters, then the driver was probably never installed. Do you know if the adapter is built into the motherboard or on a pci card?

If it's built into the board, the drivers are probably in the CD that came with the computer.

If it's on a pci card, do you know the manufacturer?

[haltz]

That's the thing that I don't understand. It's definitely not aftermarket, and I have all (I believe) of the driver and utility CDs. None of them are working.

Right now I am looking at http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist and I'm not sure exactly what for, or if there is anything on that page that will do me any good.

Also, it's worked before this incident, hardlined as well as with the wireless USB adapter.

[New Pagodi]

The only driver there that could possibly be it is [url=hhttp://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R67150&SystemID=DIM_P4_4600&servicetag=&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=2834&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=2&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=5&fileid=87106]Intel 10/100 LOM[/url]. If you can get that to your computer somehow, going through the process I described above except select "update driver" instead of "uninstall."

If it asks to connect to the internet, select no. The skip any screens until it says "If your hardware came with a CD insert it now". Change the radio box to "Install from a list of specific location" Hit next and then browse to select the file you downloaded.