Odd internet loss problem

[Infernalz]

I have been having a weird problem with my internet connection and it doesn't seem to be anything that would be fixed easily. The problem is that every time I turn off my computer, and it stops connecting to the internet, when I turn it back on it stays disconnected to the internet. So far the only solution has been just waiting for it to be recognized by my router as connected, after that happens I have to reinstall a driver and restart the computer to get it to work, but the waiting has been about 10 hours for just turning it off then back on or up to 4 days after being off for 2 weeks, but right now I'm about 2 days of downtime after some restarts when restarting has never done this. It seems that the device manager doesn't have an Ethernet controller, but would have it (a nvidia one I believe) when the internet comes back on and I can't find some way to just download a new one. The actual Ethernet cord or port isn't the problem because I've connected it to this machine and it has worked instantly, I don't believe I've had some download that would have broken it and I don't think it would be something being out of date/needs updating since it has worked at all.

The computer itself is about 6-7 years old (I know I really need to upgrade...) but I've only been having this problem in the last ~8 months or so and with 2 different ISPs. The OS is Windows XP Home Edition.

The only real solution I could think of was buying a network card, but with it being 6-7 yeard old I really don't want to put more money into it, but if that ends up being the only solution I just might have to.

[rufee]

Could be a controller chip problem, ive seen this before the driver is installed, but it does not show up in the manager.

A new good nic is only about 10$, or you can just borrow one from a friend to test.