I got an email from my mom earlier today explaining a problem she is having with her computer. This problem has got both my brother (network guy) and I mostly stumped. I am still waiting on specs back, but her mobo is a Gigabyte with a VIA chipset and an XP 1800+.
The problem is that with either DSL or regular dial-up (yes, even in safe mode so that dismisses 95% or better of software issues particularly Norton and firewall stuff) she can get as far as her ISP's DNS server assigning an IP but that is it, no surfing, no ping (by name or IP), no FTP, etc.
After asking my brother all the usual troubleshooting questions and finding he had tried nearly all of them, I suggested trying a PCI NIC card rather than using the onboard NIC. He questioned this because it didn't work with dial-up either and I got to thinking, does the southbridge network controller handle both NIC and dial-up connections?
New chipset drivers may fix this problem if that is the case as there are newer ones than the ones she has installed.
My brother is going to try a PCI NIC tomorrow though just to rule out the onboard NIC, but does anyone have experience with this problem?

Did you try hitting it a few times?

Has the problem been ongoing? For how long? Try checking broadbandreports.com to see if maybe the ISP has an outage locally. That happened to me in Cleveland once with Adelphia, bad router on their end. Try the DSL modem in a different jack, phone jacks go bad all the time, especially on an exterior wall, a little condensation and boom. The card will get an IP from the modem. CHeck the link lights on the DSL modem itself

All other computers in the house work fine and all are on a router. Only the one rig is having a problem.

Try using some LiveCD, help rule out software issues...

Well, I can't try anything as I am not in Iowa any longer. However, the mojority of any software issues (other than drivers) were ruled out with it not working in safe mode..
I am about to give here a call and see if the new chipset drivers worked or what else was done so far.