hello,

i am new to this, but after posting on several others and searching
endlessly for information online and other forums such as this, i have
found no post/thread specific to my situation, so i am going to start a
new thread. i would really appreciate any help you can provide!

our home has a cable connection and two computers, a laptop that
connects wirelessly using an 802.11g 4-port router, and a desktop with a
wired connection. the laptop never has had any problems; it will
connect directly through the cable modem, wired and wirelessly through
the router. the desktop has been having issues forever...it would
randomly connect to the network, work for weeks at a time, but then
stop. it would always work connected to the cable modem. after trying
just about everything i (and everyone i know and spoke with) could think
of, i reformatted the desktop (there were other problems too...). while
drastic, everyone agreed that i had tried everything.

i did not have the recovery disk, so after reformatting with xp sp2; i
went online with the laptop and got the necessary drivers and utilities
(mostly from the dell site) on a flash drive. i installed everything
and set the tcp/ip settings in the properties of the local area
connection (which always has limited or no connectivity), but i still
cannot get online with that computer. (i can still get online with a
direct connection to the cable modem.)

after trying many, many things, someone suggested that i check the
'enable proxy' parameter in the registry, which was when i noticed that
it didn't exist. (not that i can see...can that be hidden???) neither
do most parameters associated with dhcp. this makes sense why i cannot
get an ip from the router, but i can find very little info (and i have
stumped many of my friends) on what to do if the values of them are
incorrect. i cannot even log into the router from the computer (nor can
i see the computer on the network from the laptop).

there is no weird software (beyond some weird broadcom suite i
installed by mistake but i have checked...it's on my laptop and causing
no problems). i have a degree in computer science, so i am not a
novice...although i did leave a lot out of this message (had i included
everything i have done this would be the worlds longest post...4 months
now). i also have been working out of the field for awhile (3 years),
and when i did was in software design...most of my networking skills are
a bit dated (but i have always known at very least enough to have all my
computers at home online with no problems).

if you could, imagine i have tried all the basics...if you have
something new or different i can try, please help...until i fix the
desktop i am <i>sharing</i> my laptop!

his desktop used to be used at his office so i do not have the exact
specs on it...it's a dell optiplex gx280 (there is some info on dell's
site) - basics; p4 2.8GHz, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB maxtor HD...nothing
specific. (but there are some things i have discovered in all of this,
so please ask anything that may clarify!) that also means it was on XP
Server network, but the reformat would have taken care of those
settings, right?

thank you,
jennifer

sorry i can't post the ipconfig /all, but i cannot get online using the
computer with the problem! (it looks NOTHING like my
laptop's...including the auto appended dns suffix)