My neighbor gave me an older computer. (Compaq Presario SR1020 NX - no system/recovery disks came with it) It has xp home SP1 and IE 6.0.2800. It was used by teenagers that did a lot of p2p file sharing and toolbar installing and who knows what else and was consequently barely functioning. I have been cleaning it up and believe that I have removed all the toxic infestations that I can without an internet connection to update the OS, etc. - which brings me to you fine people and my question...
I have existing high speed DSL through an ATT 2wire 2701HG-B gateway/router. It has a desktop connected through ethernet/cat 5 wiring and a laptop that connects wirelessly. Both these work just fine. File and printer sharing is OFF on both these computers - they do not "see" each other - which is how I want it for now.
I want to connect the 3rd computer up via ethernet cable directly to the router and am having problems. The network adapter is a Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast ethernet NIC. It shows up as functional in the device manager but ipconfig shows "media disconnected". I have used several different new cat5 cables and tried all the ports on the router. I have disabled and re-enabled the driver in device manager and disabled and re-enabled the local area connection in Network Connections. I have gone through the limited ATT help desk with "no joy". I am not sure what steps to take now.
Is there a way to tell if the NIC is fried for sure, before I go out and have to spend $$ I don't really have to buy a new NIC? I will if I have to, but would like to know for sure before I do...
Many, many thanks!
~D