I have a client's computer with a problem like I've never seen before. It's an older XP Pro machine with a kind of no-name ethernet card. It doesn't pick up an IP address on that card so I started with all the normal stuff. I removed one virus and an almost negligable amount of spyware, that didn't help (I specialize in viruses and spyware so I'm pretty sure I didn't miss anything). I plugged in my USB ethernet adapter and it worked great, everything was perfect. So I decided that the ethernet card must be the problem and uninstalled it, letting it reinstall. It did that fine but still no IP address. I checked all the settings, everything was automatic like it should be. I changed cables, although I know all of mine are fine, no better.
So I finally pulled out the card and put in one of mine, a D-Link DFE-530TX. I've never had trouble with them so I figured it would be fine... it found it, installed it, said everything was great... and no IP address. That ruled out the card being bad so I put the original back in, just in a different PCI slot. It found it fine, installed it, and no IP address. (This includes manually trying to repair the IP address, it never works.
I finally went into the registry and removed all the ethernets from the local machine/current control set/enum/ PCI area (used in the "data is invalid" problem that people sometimes have) and let it reinstall one more time. Nothing. So short of selling him my one retail USB ethernet adapter I am completely lost. It sure looks like a software problem to me, all the hardware is great with the system.
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