You can see the scare I had here: http://www.infinitemac.com/f7/could-...r-x1200-t2302/

so I got the mobo reset, and did a re-install. The install that died used the forcedeth V ethernet driver (for no particular reason), and this time I went back to nforcelan (and tried a different audio driver at the same time since plain ALC888 wasn't doing anything).

Install went fine.. and reboot seemed to be a success. I was able to see my audio in System Profiler.. copied the info out and saved it across my home LAN, so I know my ethernet was working. Went upstairs to grab my latop (with saved links to new drivers I was going to try for audio/wireless).. come back downstairs, and fire up Safari to surf out and grab the drivers... but safari complains I'm not connected to the internet.. and Network Prefs claims cable is disconnected.

So ethernet WAS working.. and then stopped.

Is this a known issue? lspic (under Ubuntu), shows:

00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Ethernet (rev a2)

so nForceLan seemed like the right driver to try.