I have spent about 24 hours during the past four days getting the home PC back to talking on the net. We had a big strom which knocked down trees on the power lines and a resulting spike that tripped power to the condo and our unit switchboard. Everything seemed sort of normal but the modem was out of action. Luckily we took the package where TM owns it not us but took a couple of days to get a new one installed.
Then the real headache started as the PC would not talk to the modem anymore. I could connect via the router with my work PC so it looked a lot like a software issue. Especially as the internal diagnostics kept saying the onboard LAN was ok. I tried everything I could find in the online forums and hardware sites to no avail so did the dreaded clean install only to find that it was still incommunicado.
So 35RM later for a new network card bingo it was back online. I could have saved 23 of those hours and a lot of re-installing software and up to date drivers if I followed my instinct rather than logic first ! Worst part is I backed up all the files except the emails so we have lost a bunch. I am getting rusty to miss that one as well. Trust me if you get an error with assignment of an IP from your ISP or router try the LAN card first even if the light is on as mine was.