Hi all, To be fair, I started with my problem in the correct forum, thus this>>> http://www.computing.net/answers/ne... is the problem I'm having (with my updates). I have brought it here, because I now believe 99% this isn't a networking issue, but an error with the Xp operating system. I don't know why "sometimes" it boots fine, and other times it boots with no internet, so at the moment I don't even know where to start troubleshooting. All I wanted was for that pc to get back to the network and see the other pc's again lol. Many thanks for reading.

First thing to check is the patch cable. I had one that would do that. The locking tang was broken off and the cable worked loose. Would work intermittently. Always check the simple things first. Next, look for NIC driver updates.

hi othehill, I had a check, made sure cables were secure and foriegn object free lol. internet connection is now no longer a problem and pinging is no longer a problem. It won't be long before I give up and spend an evening doing yet another clean install. If I am reduced to that, I think I'll ghost it when it's all updated to save a few hours updating lol. I really do have a suspicion that something I don't know about is messed up in the services.msc window.

That is the computer gremlin.

Do you have a static or dynamic ip address? Have you tried switching to another port on the router? You mentioned in your other post that you were getting an error when running network wizard, what is the error? Run from the command prompt, ipconfig/all and post the results. Silence is golden but duct tape is silver

Here are the results: host name:........mainboothe primary dns suffix....:<nothing here> node type.............:unknown ip routing enabled....:no wins proxy enabled....:yes Ethernet adapter local area connection: connection specific dns suffix description.......:realtek rtl8139 family pci fast ethernet NIC #2 physical address......:00-02-44-2e-**-** dhcp..................:yes autoconfiguration enabled: yes ip address...........:***.***-*-* subnet mask..........:***-***-***-* default gateway......:***-***-*-* dhcp server..........:"-"-"-" dns servers..........:"-"-"-" lease obtained.......:15 oct 2008 13:29:04 lease expires........:16 " " " I don't know if was right to leave the numbers, I'm not sure if you need them or I was supposed to hide them. If it's any use, I cannot get on at all now and the same has happened using a wireless dongle. I have made an attempt using my mobile broadband dongle, and connected perfect. Also when I disconnected it, and used wireless, worked a treat also (apart from loging on to my home network). I'm going to give up, and put the messed up settings to bad experience and start clean. thanks for all suggesstions :o)