lot of info to take in there will try all and get back asap

my isp does not need mac address recognition

my concern is that every other pc i have ( will if plugged directly into the cable modem reboot and keep the connection without a prob

i will try and change net cards and see if it is the prob

i might (do not flame me for this ) another linux distro to convince me it is not the wonderful knoppix (ubantu looks nice!!)

to clarify the problem box will connect to internet but only if i run netcardconfig each boot up

would a work around to be write a bash script to do this in the rc5.d file?