3COM NIC P4P800 Delux Problem

Hi,

Last Wednesday my cable modem suddenly lost Internet connectivity for most
of the day. It came back on Thursday but was gone again for all of Friday.

On Saturday morning an Engineer came round, the cable modem was connected
again, and it rapidly became clear that he knew very little about the
Internet, Networks and Broadband. However, he did a signal test on the CM
signal and it was within tolerance. Shortly after he left the cable modem
lost connectivity again and has been off all of Saturday and all of Sunday.

I have virus checked my PC, I have looked for spyware and, in frustration, I
even rolled back the 3COM Gigabit NIC driver tonight - nothing.

I then disabled the 3COM NIC in Control Panel and, within a minute or so, my
connectivity was back. I re-enabled the NIC and it went again. I then
disabled the NIC, waited for my cable modem to regain Internet connectivity
and watched whilst that connectivity lasted 5 minutes until, sadly, I
enabled the NIC again.

So, the NIC appears to be the problem? Is it sending out erroneous packets?
Anyone have any idea or experienced anything similar at all?

I hope to be able to post this in one of my brief moments of connectivity.


J.