Dave,
Simple things first that you may have already tried.

Does the 'network adapter' show up in Device manager? (It should as you get
the disconnected message)

Do the connectivity lights come on at the router and Dell end?
Expect that there are two small lights at the dell end, one should light
when cable is connected to router the other when traffic is passing.

If the lights at the Dell and router end don't light it is possible (not
very likely with newer gear) that you have the wrong type of cable between
the Dell and the router. There are two cables wirings: normal and crossover.
Modern gear detects which cable is being used so doesn't matter. Some
el-cheapo devices don't do the auto detect.

If that is the case (again pretty unusual with newer gear) you will need to
change the cable or get a really cheap network hub (they contain an internal
crossover).

If you have a crossover cable, then it should work if you connect the Dell
and one of your laptops directly without the router. You will get a local
peer-peer two computer network with the lights on.

Michael

"Dave in KY" wrote in message
...
Any additional thoughts out there?

"Dave in KY" wrote:

I tried that and it didn't help. Should I reboot afterword or does that
matter?

"Robert Moir" wrote:


"Dave in KY" Dave in wrote in message
...
I have a home network that has a DSL modem connected to a Linksys
BEFW11S4v.2
(with updated firmware) 4 port switch WiFi router. I have several XP
machines
hardwired to teh switch and all have conectivity. I have a cable
runnin
form
the switch approximately 50 ft to an upstairs bedroom. I just
purchased a
Dell with Vista for this room. The machine does not recognize teh
cable. I
can carry my laptop running XP to the same room and connect the
ethernet
cable and it works no problem.

I've downloaded new drivers for the internal NIC card on the Dell.
Still
the
Local Area Connection shows "network cable unplugged".

I've disabled IPV.6, QoS Stacker, Link-Layer topoloy discovery mapper
i/o
driver and link-layer topology discovery responder and still I get
"network
cable unplugged".

Frustrated eyond belief at this stage. Why does this have to be
soooooooo
hard? Can you help me?

Change the duplex settings of the network card (in card's driver
properties)
to 10Mb/Half Duplex and see if that works. It's probably set to
auto-sensing
at the moment and sometimes this can fall down (I've seen it fall down
with
linksys routers before actually). If that works, try fiddling with the
settings, the ideal setting would probably be 100Mb/Full Duplex.