I've tried everything I know and searched all kinds of message boards and talked to all kinds of tech support people on the phone. I still cannot connect to the internet. The NIC and the modem are coming up under "Unknown" with a yellow exclaimation mark.

Someone on another board (who had the same issue) did an FDisk and reloaded. My question is, should I bother attempting this on a 3 year old computer? I've always run Windows XP, but I can't imagine all the updates that I would have to d/l if I restored using my original factory XP disk. Not to mention, everything else works fine right now, music, games, word processing, Excel - I would hate to do all this work and not gain anything (ie, still not get the NIC to connect).

Also, if I do decided to reformat, are there any good articles out there for non computer people that will walk me through the process?

Yup, also tried installing drivers that I had downloaded off their website (burned a cd while at work). The computer knows the name of the card (Intel Pro 100+ Management Adapter) but puts it under the category "unknown" with a yellow exclaimation point. The WAN Miniport (ATW) does this as well (aol's version of adapater). My system is clean in the way of viruses and spyware. All I did was move my comptuer from one room to another and now it doesn't work. :cry:

I agree with ThongInspector , it seems to be a matter of the wrong drivers or even a dead nic card .they do give up the ghost like all computer parts .

also the title of you post ,reformat or buy a new computer ! not really a good reason to buy a new computer ,unless that is someone else is going to buy it for you !lol then any excuse is a good one .

before any format you should always aquire the neede software and drivers first .hard to do i know if your computer isn't working right! some options if avaible in you area
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u..._04sept20.mspx