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As it turns out, it wasn't my onboard NIC freaking out; it was the 1000-base switch I've been using for years now. I should have tried swapping that out first, but I hadn't seen any problems on other devices connected to it until today. The only other device on it is my print server, and I don't print very often. But I've now swapped it out with an old 100-base switch I had sitting around and all is well. Thanks for the offers of replacement NICS anyway!
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I tried every driver listed under this laptop on the Dell support site, both under network and communications. Then I tried a couple other drivers that people on various forums suggested as working with this model, and those didn't work either. Finally, I opened up the case and got the Intel model number off of the mini-PCI card and downloaded the driver directly from Intel. *That* worked!
Now just two more pieces of hardware to figure out what the heck they are. We have a "Broadcom USH" and a "PCI serial port". Whee!
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I tried every driver listed under this laptop on the Dell support site, both under network and communications. Then I tried a couple other drivers that people on various forums suggested as working with this model, and those didn't work either. Finally, I opened up the case and got the Intel model number off of the mini-PCI card and downloaded the driver directly from Intel. *That* worked!
Now just two more pieces of hardware to figure out what the heck they are. We have a "Broadcom USH" and a "PCI serial port". Whee!