network connectivity issues with windows XP home edition

Hello ,
I am having some problems with network connectivity on my laptop running XP -home edition.Network connectivity to my PC thru the same ethernet cable is fine and so i suppose the network cable is alright.

I have ethernet port as well as a wireless card on my laptop. I was able to talk thru both the ethernet port and wireless until a month ago. The wireless card is hooked thru a access point and then to my cable modem. On the laptop dhcp fails ( on both ethernet and wireless) and the automatic IP address is configured on either of them ( 169.xx.xx.xx). ipconfig /release and then ipconfig /renew fails to detect the dhcp.
I have tried the following
1. netsh int ip reset. No success.
2. checked if the firewall is enabled. It is not enabled.
3. netstat -e shows input and output frames as does netstat -s -p ip. These counters increase on a ipconfig /renew.
4. If i see the counters using network connections-><ethernet device>->status. the Sent counters are > 0 and increase while the receive counters are 0.
I am looking for ways to resolve this issue. Appreciate any help in with this issue.
thanks
-Sushil

 

Did the problem start with a SP2 upgrade?

 

I checked thru control-panel->add/remove programs and noticed that the laptop had Q329115 ( sp2 hotfix ) installed. I removed that and that did not make any difference. I have a bunch of SP1 fixes installed currently. No sp2.

 

Use this utility to reinstall the TCP/IP protocol stack in XP. This is the solution of last resort before a complete reinstall of Windows itself.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4372.html

The ultility is called winsockfix