Are you using cable or DSL internet services? In My Computer/Properties/Hardware/Device Manager, are you showing any yellow question marks? It sounds suspiciously like the drivers for your NIC card are not installed or perhaps the wrong ones. When you plug in your Cat 5 cable to either the PCMCIA or into the builtin Combo card Jack, does the green ready light come on?
I have a similar Inspiron 8000 and there is a setting in BIOS for the Mini-PCI Combo to enable or disable it. Check that for Enabled.

Since no one has addressed your second question, using the hard drive flash method is dangerous in the 8200, but if your machine runs, you survived. Using the floppy method involves only one diskette. Another alternative is to use a CD with a DOS boot image. However, since you are already flashed to A11, wait to see if an A12 that addresses issues you have comes out before you try again. Indiscriminately flashing the BIOS for the sake of it involves some risk to your computer even with the floppy method; although the risk is significantly lower than with the hard drive method.

Try the Actiontec Intel 8255x Ethernet driver link below in my sig - after looking for any yellow ! in the Device Manager.  Also use the Lucent 8.30 modem driver.

Everybody, Thank for your prompt and helpful responses.

John - I'll try what you recommended and let you know the results. If I don't use dialup, will I need the lucent driver? Also, if you have a minute, what exactly would installing these drivers do to my system?

leduke30 - I connect via a cable modem. When I plug the cat 5 cable into the right side of my laptop, (the port, ethernet and regular telephone, came built in to the laptop), the light is a flickering orange. I'll try making the bios changes that you recommended later tonight and get back to you. You mention mini-pci and pcmcia. Are they interchangeable terms? Are my pcmcia slots mini-pci?

schmieg - thanks for answering that last part of my question. I'll keep that in mind next time I flash the bios. Do you think it was wise to flash it in the first place? And when should I expect a new bios release?

Again, thank you all for you help with this. I'll be trying everything tonight when I get off of work and well post my results.

-Ryan

The orange light is a sign that your network connection or NIC card is not right. Were the network entries in Device Manager free of error marks? The Mini PCI Modem /LAN combo is internal and plugs into a slot on the M'board. There is a panel on the bottom of the machine for access. It is not necessary to use PCMCIA cards on your model(or my latitude C800) for the Modem or LAN,  as the internal Modem/LAN  takes care of the tasks nicely, assuming it is not disabled in BIOS and the proper drivers are installed

I didn't think to check the network entries in Device Manager after the clean reinstall. I will as soon as I get off of work.

My original problem though was with the wireless card not working, which prompted me to try the NIC card. Would the NIC driver problems have anything to do with the wireless pcmcia slots not working?

No, the drivers for the PCMCIA slots are put in during W-XP install normally. The wireless card may need drivers though. I have not worked with those, so no sure answer from me.

Flashing your BIOS was probably not a bad idea and provides support for newer software and hardware. It is not necessary to flash every time a new BIOS is released unless the new release addresses an issue you are having. However, if your BIOS becomes too far out of date (A02 to A11 for instance), you may be losing compatibility with newer Windows updates and things along those lines which will not necessarily be listed by Dell in their update section.

When can you expect an A12? You can't; just check now and then. If (a) no further problems develop that Dell feels need to be answered in the BIOS, there won't be another or (b) Dell decides to abandon further support of the I8200, there won't be another. The latter probably won't happen for a while. The I8200 has been one of the more stable Inspiron models with fewer BIOS mods than most of the others. My I8000 just had BIOS A23 released about the same time as the A11 came out on the I8200.

Installing the drivers I pointed to (allowing for the fact you do indeed have the Actiontec card and not the 3Com (if the 3Com, Windows would have installed the right drivers) will enable the built-in ethernet connector on the side, and also make the modem usable.  You might want to get into the BIOS and Alt+P to make sure the mini-pci device is enabled and showing combo, but I believe it is because you said it is flashing orange (BTW, the orange denotes a 100mb connection).  But the Device Manager having yellow ? would also point to that.  Don't be shy of the ethernet driver coming from IBM tech support - it is the latest driver for the chipset and solves connection speed problems the Dell drivers for that card have.

It looks like I have the 3Com card. Under the device manager/network adapters, I see: "3Com 3C920 Intergrated Fast Ehternet Controller (3C905C-TX Compatible)".

I still went ahead (before reading your latest post) and installed both drivers you pointed me to in your previous post and my device manager for network adapters is showing a yellow ! under my NETGEAR 108 Mbps Wireless PC Cart WG511T which I just tried to install. The 3Com Ethernet Controller appears normal however; no yellow ? or !.

There's a yellow ? for other devices and both a yellow ? and yellow ! on the PCI modem subset.

When I plug in the cat 5, the big light is solid orange and the smaller light continues to be flickering yellow.

Any ideas on where to go from here? Will try those drivers you mentioned later tonight, but perhaps you'll have more specific advice knowing what you know now.

THANKS!

I downloaded and unzipped the IBM drivers (so I think) but am having trouble installing them. And when I try to turn on the miniPCI in the BIOS, I see "mini PCI device not installed" and am not given any option to modify it. I'm going to keep trying to install the IBM drivers I downloaded. If this doesn't work, though, I'll be at a a complete loss.

I'll do that. I'm thinking that this has to be a hardware issue because it's worked on at least 3 previous complete reformat/clean reinstalls of windows xp pro. I guess I can find a pictoral guide somewhere on the dell website. Will post later tongight or sometime tomorrow. Thanks for the continued support.

Open the access panel on the bottom of the machine and insure the MiniPCI card is present and plugged into the slot correctly. Then go back to BIOS and see if you can enable it. There is no sense of worrying about drivers until it is picked up by BIOS.  Also, depending on the OS version, Windows may install  the drivers from the .cabs files or similar files depending on the OS version

For everyone's knowledge.

The i8200 has a on motherboard NIC, which is a 3Com type, and a Daughter card modem, it is not a MiniPCI combo card. The MiniPCI slot is normally open unless you ordered a wireless network card with the system. Normally windows XP, either version, installs 3Com drivers that work for the NIC. Although I suggest you download the correct/updated drivers from the Dell support site and install them. The modem daughter card is normally a Actiontech MD560RD not a PCtel, although they do list the PCtel drivers on the website so you should look on the bottom of the notebook for a label that will tell you which modem daughter card is install and download the correct drivers as Windows XP does not install drivers for it.

Should you update the BIOS to A11????? That is totally up to you. I have been using A11 since it came out which is about a year ago and have had NO problems with it. NOTE: USE ONLY THE FLOPPY BOOT METHOD TO UPDATE/FLASH THE BIOS. Do NOT do it from the hard drive, unless you feel like making your notebook a door stop.

Here is a link to the Dell page for the i8200 and XP.

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/devices.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&SystemID=INS_PNT_P4_8200&category=0&os=WW1&osl=EN