Rebooting with the AC power connected and the Ethernet cable connected doesn't help.  What is the mechanism that turns the NIC card on and off?  I have both Windows XP and Puppy Linux on the computer, and I'm unable to connect to the Internet with either OS.  How do I tell if the NIC card is dead or merely asleep?

On Sun, 4 Oct 2009 21:53:28 -0500
"Chuck Cole" <cncole at earthlink.net> wrote:

> It's probably OK and just trying to help you save battery life according to some odd defaults.  My Dell Latitude D's have some power
> saving defaults and options that will make the NIC turn off at odd times.  Various network setup options restore these after I have
> disabled them.  Mine are mainly associated with docking and undocking and whether the wireless or wired NIC is active.
> 
> Rebooting with the AC power module connected and the LAN connected should make it wake up properly.  Track down all the BIOS and NIC
> driver setup options after that.
> 
>