So, my computer, working fine, running windows XP, had latest updates and spyware protection etc.
All of a sudden for no reason at all, the network interface built into the motherboard stops working.
I have tried 3 different cables, 3 different network cards, 3 different ports on the router, and it still doesn't work.
There have been several recent power outages but it was hooked up to a UPS and did in fact work fine for a while after the outages happened.

Was thinking about getting another HD and putting linux on there to see if that worked to rule out hardware damage, but are there any other suggestions before I go through all that?
Thanks!

Are these PCI cards?

Are you thinking the PCI slots are defective?

Have you tried different slots?

Are your PCI slots on the motherboard or is this a slim unit with a PCI expansion perpendicular to the main board?

Any other problems?

This is a mini ATX form factor board with 1 AGP and 1 PCI slot.
It has onboard LAN that I thought must have gone bad. It did have a graphics card in the PCI slot so I swaped that out with another computer and put one in the AGP to free up the PCI.
Then in that slot I tried two different NICs.
So it may be possible that both the onboard LAN and the PCI slot went out, but I don't think that is the case being that the PCI graphics card was working in that slot as well as windows is reporting that all devices are working properly....
that is each of the NICs as well as the onboard LAN.

Also I should mention that on the connection interface where it shows the connectino name and stats it seems to be sending but not reciving...?

There are no other problems at all.

More trouble it seems... my laptop and another computer are having the same type problem....

This is very odd. I have been working on computers for a long time and I havn't seen anything quite like this,
I'll try the linux and let you know how it goes...

Check the Link Speed and Duplex settings in the properties of the network card. They are often set to 'Auto-Detect' but try them on 10Mbps Half-Duplex and 10Mbps Full-Duplex and see if you get different results. I can't remember exactly why but I have to set all of the PCs on my company network to Half-Duplex (10Mbps or 100Mbps or 1000Mbps) - whenever I get a problem with one PC, it's usually that setting that sorts it out.

Can't guarantee it will resolve your issue but it's a much quicker thing to try than installing a different operating system!

Thanks for the suggestion. It didn't seem to be the problem. I did however figure it out.
I figured out that it had to be something odd with the router or it's settings because I was helping a friend put together his system over here and with a fresh install he could get on the network either.
It had the same symptoms where on the connection status it showed packets sent but not recieved.
Our DHCP server had a slim range, just enough for our computers. For some reason the three computers that had teh problem were the most seldom used in the house.
For some reason they had given up their hold on an address and couldn't pick it back up. I am not sure why this happened but when I increased the range from 6 addresses to 10 they picked up the addresses and it fixed the problem.

So I have no idea why they wouldn't pick up the open IP addresses even with ipconfig /release > /renew and all that, but I got it in the end.

Thanks for all the help guys

Resolved