Can't connect to the Internet on Win XP SP2

I took my laptop in last week to have it looked at because it was freezing up at the boot screen. They figured out it was the memory that went bad and replaced it. I got my laptop back today and everything was functioning properly but I'm unable to connect to the internet. I have High Speed internet through Cox and I can't understand why it won't establish a connection. I've searched different threads and other sites and tried other peoples recommendations but nothing has worked. I'm wondering if maybe the network card is conflicting with the new memory? I know the connection itself isn't bad as I'm able to connect to another laptop I own just fine and the connection worked on this computer last week before I took it in.

I made sure to disable my Zone Alarm firewall and the Windows firewall and I'm not connected to a router. I tried the 'Repair' feature in Windows XP and that didn't work. Someone mentioned on another thread that you can ping '127.0.0.1' and if it didn't respond, that means something is wrong with the network card. When I ping '127.0.0.1', it did display information but whenever I try to ping my ISP (cox.net) or Google, it wouldn't display anything. I tried uninstalling the network card drivers (Realtek RTL 8169/8110 Family Gigabit Ethernet NIC) and reinstalling the drivers and that didn't help. I've tried going into 'ipconfig' to renew/release but that didn't help at all.

Can anyone help me with this problem? I did try to search other threads before asking this question and none of the suggestions seemed to work. I'm hoping someone out there can help me. BTW, I'm using Windows XP SP2 Home Edition with 512MB RAM and an AMD 64 Mobile 1.8ghz processor.

Thank you very much.

 

What kid of IP addresses are you getting?

 

Ones starting with 169.xxxx

 

You are getting IP addresses generated by APIPA (Automatic Private Addressing) which is built into windows to give you and IP address when you can't find a DHCP server or the DHCP denies you an IP address.

Is your laptop connected directly to a cable modem or is there a router somewhere in the mix?

 

The laptop is connected directly to the cable modem

 

a Cable provider where I live records the mac addresses of the computers connected to it and will only the first computer that connects to the modem to connect to the internet. I don't know if this is the situation with you but it's worth investigating.

Did you connect that other laptop (we'll call it laptop B) BEFORE you got yours back? If you still have laptop B can you try getting online with it?

Even better if you have a third PC try getting online with that.

If you find that only laptop B can get onlline then unplug your modem for 30 min to an hour and make sure the first computer you connect to it is your own.