I really need help! :smileysad:

In October this year, I bought a new Dell desktop (Inspiron 531) with Windows Vista installed. Until recently, I had a dial-up account with Virgin Media but decided to take up their broadband service. With Windows Vista, you are supposed to connect the modem to your PC, go to the autoreg website and then follow the instructions to register the broadband (there is a CD that is used for installation for all other operating sytems).

However, I couldn't connect to the initial autoreg page. After a lot of phoning around to Dell and to Virgin (I dread to think of the phone bill...), we discovered that there was limited or no connectivity. Virgin had me check the IPv4 address both before and after unscrewing the cable from the back of the modem and both times it came back 169...(+ other numbers), whereas it should have been all 0s when I unscrewed it. Virgin concluded that it was a problem with the computer (all lights were normal on the modem and they couldn't see a problem their end) and mentioned winsockvista. Does anyone know whether this will help? Or do you think it could be another problem? Would I really have to send it back to Dell to sort it out? I don't want to, as I really need the computer for work!