Is my pc dying!?

[The Texan]

OK this is really weird so im gonna start from the first. A few days ago my wireless internet connection went out. ( not totally unusual) since then I have found out my netgear router is toast. it was REALLY hot and I think it fried. ( im going with linksys next) thats not really my issue, just part of it. After my net died I decided to do a defrag and check disk on my system. Since that time it had come up saying "wireless network connection unavailable" ( well my net is down so I know I dont have it) now im not certain ( I havent checked yet) but Im pretty sure I removed my regular ethernet card to put the wireless one in. BUT it is also showing a local area connection wth a red X on it. I figured it was disabled so I right click on it and it ISNT disabled. It says the word "disable" instead of "enable" when I click the word disable it restarts my pc every time. When I go to device manager I dont see a regular nic card I see an Ethernet Controller. If I try and disable that or uninstall same deal It restarts my pc. After a few times of this happening a message has now appeared on my pc saying " Major hardware changes have been detected you have 3 days to reactivate your windows or you wont be able to use windows til you activate again. My question is this. once I get a new router I know I can fix my internet but is my pc dying?! its only 1 year old. I take really good care of it lol

Im running a legal copy of XP Pro. P4, 512 megs of ram I have a Linksys wireless card. and I wasnt doing anything crazy with it before this started. My internet just died ( as well as dying on my roomates pc's.) then I ran the scans and all this started!

[morganlefay]

Maybe your board needs a bios update????


MLF

[The Texan]

that is a possibility that I cant rule out but this all is just so sudden and random... I really dont want to have to format my hard drive either...

[zodiac]

For the love of god, STAY AWAY FROM LINKSYS!

I had one. It dropped connection constantly. Tech support told me I had to have line-of-site for it to work. Uh, hello? If I had line-of-site, I'd run CAT5 to the computer.

I switched to a SMC Barricade G and have had absolutely no problems in more than a year of use.

[The Texan]

what do you suggest? I wasnt to happy with netgear and I have heard horrid things about Belkin

[morganlefay]

I use dlinks....they work fine for home use...you can get repeaters\amplifiers for them.

Never really had any problems....

as for linksys....I pickup a linksys wireless at my house thats somewhere in the nieghbourhood....and its definately not line of site

MLF

[The Texan]

You have to be able to connect to the net to "reactivate windows" so im gonna have to get my internet working again to reactive but I think there may be more issues than just that as I outlined above. I cant hardwire into my modem because I cant find my regular nic all I have is my wireless card

[morganlefay]

You can phone MS to activate....I have done it

MLF

[dalek]

Hi Tex

I've been using a DLink 704P for two years now without any problems (knock on wood), they are fairly cheap in price and are easy to configure..

http://www.dlink.com/

[The Texan]

I dont mean to be rude and thank you for the router reviews but could we please bring this back on track? I have attached screenshots of my problem. everytime I click on "disable" on the ethernet controller it restarts my pc. I re-activated my windows btw. I want the red X icon to go away and I want to disable that nic controller? I guess? since I am not working wirelessly again. I just really want to know if all this is being caused because my windows is dying?