The only thing I can think of that might be relavent to your situation is if you have more than 1 NIC in there, but only have 1 connected to something - if this is the case, then the simple solution is to disable the unused 1. If you only have the 1, but haven't connected it to your cable modem yet, then there's your prob - hook it up & your prob should disappear [hopefully].

Hi,
 
One of the ways to speed up booting after a NIC has been installed is to assign it a static IP address. By default, Windows sets the network card to get an IP number everytime the machine boots up; the OS has to check the netwrok to see what numbers are available. If you assign a static IP number to your network card, then it will use that number from then on, and this helps with the booting time.
 
Cheers

Thanks, I'll contact my ISP to see if I'm allowed a static IP.

Bilston, I believe PinkPanther meant the IP addy for your network card, not that of your internet connection which is different. Maybe someone else can do a better job of explaining this than me.

PP said that XP checks the network for an available IP, it is then assigned one. My Network IS my ISP, so essentially shouldn't I have to contact them about it, if they're the ones giving me an IP for the NIC?
 
Thanks

Ok, let's see if I understand your setup correctly:
 
You have only one computer; this computer has one NIC that gets connected to the Cable Modem, right? Now, I have never used a cable modem, so I do not know if the modem itself get an IP ADDY or not, but IF it does not, then you are correct, and it is your ISP that controls the IP assign to your computer. Unfortunately, most ISP charge much more money if you request a static IP ADDY (some don't even provide this option.)
 
However, there is a simple way to test this:
 
On a home LAN, the machine directly with access to the internet usually uses IP 192.168.0.1, so you can check the following - the worse thing that happens here if this not work is that you lose internet access until you put the setting back the way it was, which is very easy. Go to Start/Settings/Network Connections and right-click on your NIC and choose Properties. Find TCP/IP from your list of protocols and double-click on it. Right now, it should be set to Obtain IP automatically; change this to Use the following IP address and enter the following:
 
IP Address: 192.168.0.2
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.0.1
 
Preferred DNS: 192.168.0.1
Alternate DNS: Leave Blank
 
Click ok all the way out of these screens; when you have closed everything, your NIC will be using the new address, so check if you have Internet access or not. If yes, then you are set, if not, then it means your cable modem does not get an IP address and your NIC needs to get it from the ISP, so just go back and set both the IP and DNS options back to Obtain Automatically.
 
Hope this helps,

Sorry to differ with you PP, but not all ISP's work that way - take mine for example - my NIC has a physical address in the format xx-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx [as I have been led to believe that all NIC's do], then the machine is assigned a IP address by the ISP, if Windows can't connect to the ISP [via the cable modem] then it will assign the computer a default IP in the format 169.xxx.xxx.xxx.
 
Other things to bear in mind [based on how my ISP works - other ISPs may vary in working practice] :-
 
As well as the MAC ID [some sort of built in ID code I think] of the cable modem being registered in connection to my account, the ISP also caches the physical address of the network adapter [not sure exactly what it would do in the case of a modem connected by USB].
 
When the lease period [4hrs for my ISP] expires, the server checks to see if the modem is still connected to its [the ISP's not the user's] network & powered on, if so then it renews the lease of the IP address to that cable modem. However, the "caching" [sp?] of the network card's physical address is tied to this lease, so that if you were to switch network cards halfway through the lease period then when you rebooted & Windows had finished installing the drivers for the new card [if it wasn't already installed] then you would be unable to connect because the ISP's server would take 1 look @ the physical address of the new network card & refuse to allow a connection because it's not the 1 it has you listed as using.
 
Under the above circumstances my ISP recommends unplugging the cable modem for 4.5 - 5 hours so that the server will "forget" about the network card being previously used [because the lease on the IP addy will have run out & as the caching of the NIC's physical addy is tied to that then that should be removed from the cache as well]. In theory you might be able to do this without quite so long a wait by waiting to change your NIC until a few mins before the lease runs out & making sure to remember to completely turn the cable modem off [& when you turn it on make sure you turn it on before turning the computer on] until a few mins after the IP lease is set to expire.
 
Sorry, started rambling there & got carried away. Dunno if any of that's useful to you or to anyone. I would say though that I wouldn't recommend setting the IP for the machine that connects to the net without checking with your ISP 1st because [i'm not 100% sure, but I'm fairly certain] I think this will bugger up your net connection because that IP is the 1 by which your computer is identified to the internet - for example, mine doesn't start with 192, @ the moment it starts with 62, although others within my ISPs range include 192, 80, & I think 82.