Engineering computer can't find Network card

[CogoSWSDS]

I have two computers on my home network. We'll call them ENGINEERING and BRIDGE. Engineering has a connection to the internet via cable modem. It shares its internet connection with Bridge using Windows XP Internet Conection Sharing (ICS). ICS was working perfectly until today when my daughter was playing a game on it.

While she was playing the mouse quit working and the on-board ethernet NIC sort-of disappeared from the Network Connections list. I say "Sort-of" because it disappeared but not really.

Before the incident with the game, the I had the on-board NIC and the second NIC was a Belkin F5D5000. The on-board nic showed up as a RealTek NIC named "Internet Connection" and the F5D5000 was named "Local Area Network 2".

Now, with the F5D5000 installed in the computer, I see "Local Area Network 2" but the card is a RealTek. If I pull the F5D5000 out, I have no NICs installed (according to the Network Connections list), yet the Internet still works fine on Engineering.

With the F5D5000 installed, Bridge and Engineering can see each other and pass packets back and forth to each other, but Engineering will not pass packets from Bridge on to Internet. I can't run the internet connection sharing wizard again, because only one NIC shows up in Network Connections.

Help!

CogoSWSDS

[Soopafresh]

My head is spinning from that description This one is REALLY hard to troubleshoot without seeing it, so fixing won't be simple at all. The nic connected to the cable modem probably uses DHCP to get an IP address, the nic connected to your internal network probably is hard coded with an IP address. Write everything out. Diagram and document your settings in case you need to recreate your ICS setup.

I'm not going to open up a can of worms by offering step by step advice. There are too many variables that I can't see or document. You'll probably end up having to remove and re-add your nic cards from the hardware tab.

Simplify your time on this Earth - get a $30 router from Netgear or Linksys or D-Link and connect both of your PCs to it.

[GKar]

As with soopafresh, I was a little hesitant to offer something. If you made no software changes (important) maybe you can simply try System Restore to the last date where it worked and see if it helps.

[CogoSWSDS]

Thanks guys. I had never used System Restore before. System Restore to 2 days ago did the trick and my network is working once again.

CogoSWSDS

[GKar]

Glad it worked....

I normally give my Norton Ghost, Acronis or other disk imaging speech about now.....oops just did...

[Soopafresh]

Wooohoooo!