Networking :: NIC trouble

This has nothing to do with dsl, but since you guys are so wise, I'll ask it here anyway.

One of my laptops, hp omnibook xe3 has a combo net device with a winmodem and Intel lan chip. The intel chip is Etherexpress pro/100 and can be used with eepro100 or the official e100 drivers.

My problem is: Can't connect to anything, not even ping my router. I can assign it ip-addresses and then ping myself (what fun ;)), and all drivers report as everything being okay. I've tried on Knoppix, dsl, LinuxFromScratch which is on it now, and win2000, which also is on it now. The windoze drivers say that the cable isn't connected, linux just says network unreachable.

The cable is ok, I tried it on another machine. The router port also is ok. The lan lights also never blink at all. The "pins" inside the rj-45 slot are okay and touch the cable's.

I would say it's broken or some internal wire is off. What do you think?

original here.