Most ethernet devices shipped with Dell computers have a diagnostic utility.  Have you tried running that?

Steve

Do you have any idea what the make and model of the ethernet card is?  Check Device Manager and see what is listed there when you expand the listings for Network Adpaters.

Steve

My ethernet card was installed by time warner cable and I don't see a diagonosis untiliy with it.

My ethernet card is a SMC EZ card 10/100. The device is working properly as seen in the device manager. One thing unusal though, apart from the above device I see a SMC - Net firewall and a SMC - Securemote miniport which I disabled just to check if it would work but it didn't. Do you think Unstalling he device and reinstalling it may work?

I would strongly suggest uninstalling and reinstalling the network adapter.

Steve

I uninstalled the device and reinstalled and yet again it installed those additional components. But this time the internrt connection resumed but just for a while after about 5 mins of use it went off and wouldn't return. I followed the above procedure twice looks like now its kind of stabilized. I tried renewing the IPCONFIG, again this time it said "The following error occurred when renewing adapter Local Area Connection: DHCP Server unreachable" but renewed the IP on Local Area Connection 3 which it created while installing the ethernet device.