[VampD]

I hope I'm posting in the right area, anyways a quick profile of my computer

q6600 with a 9800 gtx, p35 ds3r motherboard having an integrated realtek network card that worked fine for 2 years until now

my computer worked fine last week and then one morning it is unable to connect to the internet when i boot it up. It shows no network connections at all even though the device manager shows the network cards if I select "show hidden." I try all the usual solutions like rebooting, system restore ( which for some reason never works anymore and always says unable to restore etc etc ), and just when I think I found the problem and try out the microsoft solutions found here: Troubleshooting missing network connection icons

I realize it doesn't work. I am unable to listen to other peoples advice and try uninstalling the network cards listed ( one is listed as a direct parallel port and a few other mini ports which I thought was strange ) it turns out I cannot uninstall any of them since I get the message that they are required to boot up the machine. So I boot up in safe mode and try the same thing and no luck, same message. Eventually I get the official gigabyte realtek network drivers and try repair and uninstalling from there and still no luck since the repair/uninstall seems to have absolutely no effect on the device manager menu or anything for that matter.

Turns out the eventual solution was to just power down my computer and flip off the power switch in the back for 30 seconds and flip it back on. After booting it back up it gave me the message realtek is incompatable with xp and was asking for permission to install, I say yes, and presto within a minute everything was working like it once was and only the realtek was in the network adapter device manager just as it was before. My question is...does anything know what the heck happened?

I'm thinking somehow my computer just magically forgot it had a network card inside and only a power switch flip would get it to remember again. I really do hate the random nature of computer problems and there solutions