XP/Ethernet Problem

I'm not sure what my problem is or where it originates from so I'll just describe the situation as best I can. Thanks in advance for any help.

I turned on my computer and received a 'Local Area Connection' warning that my ethernet cable was unplugged. I knew this was not the case as no one was here since I last used the computer, but I checked the cable anyway and everything was fine as I expected.

I then checked my DSL modem and router, both of which were fine. I then checked the internet on my laptop, which is wi-fi, and it was fine. I then tried to re-set the internet connection to my PC by restarting the computer and this did not work. At that point I went to bed to work on it the next morning.

So this morning I turn on the computer and when XP is loading the programs in my system tray it just randomly restarts. So I let it load back into XP and now it seems stable but I'm still getting the ethernet icon in my system tray blinking and trying to connect but something is going wrong with it.

I'm worried that it's restarting on it's own, could a virus be controlling my internet connection?

Please let me know any information I can provide that would be helpful to figuring out a solution.

Thanks Again!

 

Thanks very much, I'll give those things a try and report back.

 

I plugged in a different ethernet cable into the same port of my router and that didn't work. Then I plugged the different cable into another port on the router and that worked! Weird, does that mean I have a bad port on my router?

So my question now is, why would my computer be restarting when the system tray was loading (it happened a few times). Would it be completely unrelated? Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks!