[Jerry Cornelius]

I'm 99% sure it isn't a crossover cable - it came with the cable modem I think. Can't see the laptop from the PC or vice versa, but it's a work one which has a pretty ferocious firewall on it that I can't reconfigure. As I mentioned, the laptop is still happily talking to the cable modem via the router. If I swap back onto the USB cable rather than the ethernet the PC goes straight back online.

Thanks for sticking with this!
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Originally Posted by Jerry Cornelius

I'm 99% sure it isn't a crossover cable - it came with the cable modem I think. Can't see the laptop from the PC or vice versa, but it's a work one which has a pretty ferocious firewall on it that I can't reconfigure. As I mentioned, the laptop is still happily talking to the cable modem via the router. If I swap back onto the USB cable rather than the ethernet the PC goes straight back online but still runs out of steam (perfect description of its behaviour) when I try to download (podcasts, in this case.)

Thanks for sticking with this!