Technology Forum

Ok, we get internet through a wireless tower that beams it to an antenna on top of the house and it eventually ends up as one ethernet cord in the basement. That may or may not be irrelevant. Anyway, I plug that cord into a router, LINKSYS BEFSR41 (it's a couple years old but it has always worked fine), and set up a LAN with the main computer being an HP pavilion a1133w w/ win XP SP 2 media center. There isn't another computer connected all the time, but I use various other machines on the network off and on (PS3, macbook, other people's computers that I'm working on for whatever reason). Recently, we've had several severe storms and flooding and whatnot, and last night, the internet suddenly quit working. I assumed it was the ISP until this morning when I called them and they said the problem was definitely on my end. My first thought was router, so I bypassed it and plugged my macbook directly into the ethernet cord from the antenna. It worked, and I thought I'd pick up a new one when the flooding subsided and I could get into town and then everything would work fine. I really need the internet on the main computer, however, so I did the same for it, plugging it directly into the incoming internet. The pavilion continued to say that the LAN was unplugged, however. I've gone through every setting and troubleshooting I can think of, but nothing I've done will make the internet work on the pavilion. ipconfig/all says media state...disconnected. Local area connection says network cable unplugged. The light doesn't come on where the ethernet cable plugs in. Now I think maybe I have a network card rather than a router problem, or both. I don't think the main computer being down would affect the other computers on the network, but I'm not really sure. I even switched the macbook over to windows, but it still works perfectly when the router is bypassed, but if I unplug the exact same cord and put it in the pavilion, it won't work. The network card is Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast ethernet NIC. The driver is updated. I'm absolutely stumped. Any help would be appreciated.