Help needed for Asus A7N8X Deluxe Network

[nebo]

I bought a new system, put it all together and installed XP Home. I'm using the integrated Nvidia port right now, but the same problem happens if i try to 3Com port. It recognizes there is a cable there (lights on port and on cable box are blinking -> data going somewhere), but I can't get network access of any sort, local or internet. I was going to try to update the Nvidia drivers, but they need XP service pack 1 which in turn needs the internet to install... The ports are active in the BIOS, i checked that already. I've searched in the forums for similar problems, found a few, but other than saying "I got it fixed, thanks a lot for the help," they didn't say how they fixed it (and apparently don't get on any more or else they'd see the pm's). Here are my specs:

Asus A7N8X Deluxe rev 2.0
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
2x512Mb Samsung PC3200 400MHz Dual Channel DDR
WD HD 120GB 7200rpm
WD HD 60GB 7200rpm
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro video card
Hercules Digifire 7.1 sound card
LG CD/RW 52x24x52
Windows XP Home

Any suggestions on getting the network to work?

[meese]

Before you do anything did you disable the internet firewall built into XP? If you did are the drivers loaded properly for the nic? Check the device manager for problems. Look for multiple listings for the same device, also check in "other devices" if it is listed there. When windows doesn't configure a driver porperly it will sometimes stick it in other devices.