I am reposting this from my post in Network and internet forums because
of no response. I'm getting desperate and am having a tech person come
in tomorroww morning at $105per hr. to try and fix this problem.....

I have an HP 6152n desktop w/ Vista home that the motherboard and power
supply were fried in a power outage. The local Fry's said that an ASUS
p5q-em motherboard was a compatable replacement. I replaced the power
supply and the motherboard. Everything seems to be working fine except
for the Realtek LAN that comes with the board. I get "local access only"
and "unidentified network". I am direct wired to a Vonage router then to
a Comcast cable modem. If I try to setup a broadband connection, it asks
for a userid/passwords. Comcast does not use or require userid/password
and they told me to call Microsoft (yeah, sure!). I've tried numerous
ipconfig commands, turned off/reset router and modems, changing duplex
settings, winsock resets, removed and reinstalled drivers, downloaded
current NIC driver (on this XP Pro laptop and another wireless XP pro
laptop which has wireless access to the same router/modem w/ NO
problem), followed numerous rabbit trails on the net, but nothing seems
to work. Ran repair numerous times and tired every option with Vistas'
diagnose/repair/reset screen. Vista says that the network settings are
correct. I tried switching different cat5 connections between different
direct wired items (xbox-which connects just fine), nothing. The
'activity' led on the NIC does NOT light up, the Speed LED does. If I
disconnect the cat5 wire to the router, the Speed LED goes out. Does
anyone have any ideas? Follow up... I installed the Express Gateway
software (allows internet access for Skype without the OS being booted
up) that came with the mobo, rebooted and enable EG in Bios.. I CAN
access the internet through Express Gateway!!!, but if I start VISTA OS,
I still get limited or no access. So this seems to be a VISTA problem -
but I have searched and searched the web and cannot find a fix. ANY
SUGGESTIONS ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!! I'm reaching the end of my
limited tech abilities! :cry: I have also since tried the following:
Disabled ipv6 as well a qos packed sched, and link layer topology
(suggested by other sites that I've found with similar problems). Still
no access.:sa:


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lhntx

You probably already spent your $105/hour if you are reading this.
If you watched and asked questions you may have learned something for the
next time around. I suspect it might not have been all that complicated.
In general, for the "simple" peer to peer networks most people use it is not
a good idea to make changes in the default network protocols installed by
the OS.
If you suspect software configuration problems on your machine uninstall the
network device in control panel/system, reboot and a new default software
configuration should be installed. Make sure you have the latest drivers for
your networking device and follow the wizard for setting up a home network
including turning on file sharing.
Under these circumstances you should be able to see the other computers on
your network when plugged into the router if there is not a problem with the
network card/motherboard component on your computer or something as simple
as the network cable.

Thanks for your response, but I made the changes to the defailts because
VISTA quit working and I also uninstalled and made sure that I had the
latest drivers and tested the cables, etc. (as my original plea for help
explained). The tech said that the problem is most likely related to
VISTA and firewall/virus programs and it could take many hours to fix. I
chose the quick fix - static IP address. The internet is now totally
accessable.


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lhntx