
Well, when my dad was rooting around the back of our computer connected to the internet, he did something that caused a normally fine network setup to stop working. Now this computer reports that the Network Cable is Disconnected for our LAN, but I have tried replacing the cable, connecting other computers to the same and different network cables and even installing another Network Card, but to no avail. Even though the LINK light on my network card is on, there is still no connectivity between the computers (and the FD light, which I assume signifies data going back and forth, is off). Therefore I am certain that the problem lies with this computer, and is probably not due to hardware (as the other network card did not work either).
I've also tried changing both computers' Network Cards to Force 10Mbps Full Duplex Connections (as I found this guidance around somewhere) but this didn't work either. Also, when I ping localhost, the packets come back fine. Upon opening up Ethereal (a network activity analyser) and pressing the button to list all available devices, my computer came up with a DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error and started to dump memory to disk. This happened two times, but then stopped happening after that.
Our network setup is such: A USB DSL Modem is connected to a computer which, in turn, is connected to another computer via a Cat-5e Cable (which says something about UTP on it... any importance?). Internet connection sharing is enabled on our host computer, and the internet is working fine on the host computer.
Can you offer any guidance? If anyone tells me to replace the cables or NICs, I will explode

Thanks,
w0lfman