Well, ever since xp came out ppl seemed to have (at some point) problems with "Local Area Connection" connectivity - proven fact !
Bunch of my friends went thru the hassle including myself, nothing helped... So called "Expert" advices didn't help, driver update wasn't worth shit... Eventually you would have to do a "system restore" and get the default settings back up (if you were lucky) losing all your customized ones you have spent hours on... oh well
Most ppl would just reinstall the entire system because they just got fed up with everything in order to get 'er done.
Well, I'm a stubborn person and once upon time I went "toe to toe" with my pc investigating why the hell my own connection wouldn't work on my own computer but it works like a charm on my next door neighbors laptop and came to the conclusion that its all about SETTINGS.
And here is the ONLY ingenious resolution that worked 100% of the time regardless of the type or company that made your "Network Adapter":
In your device manager doubleclick on your specific "Network Adapter" whatever the name and description of it might be and go to the setting "Speed & Duplex", then change the default setting which is "Auto-Negotiation" or 100Mbps to >>10Mbps<< !!! That's it, you're good to go !
Now you might say: "well, I don't want to slow down my connection just to get it to work" - you're NOT, trust me !!!
Shaw High-Speed Lite lets you download up to 256Kbps ! Even if you subscribe to shaw high speed for example, their speed is 7,5Mbps so, you don't necessarily NEED the 100Mbps setting for your Network Adapter in order to exhaust the full potential of your hardware...
Don't ask why or how, that's just the way it is. I'm not a geek nor a computer tech, just an average joe who went to hell and back learning something thru the experience...
Cheers