Standard info:

Acer Aspire 5100
Windows XP SP2
512 MB RAM
ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 128MB shared
Aetheros AR5005G 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN
Realtek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet NIC
Realtek HD Audio with HD bus
           ... anyways

Here's a rather odd predicament i'm in. I can't even solve the problem i'm having with my own personal laptop.. I either install the drivers for my sound card so it does work and not be able to use either my NIC or WiFi card, OR disable my sound card and be able to use the internet. I thought it was perhaps a resource problem, but before I reinstalled WinXP it worked just fine.

Here's the real kicker: Ares (a P2P sharing program) and Yahoo! Messenger connects to the internet just fine while the sound card is running, however it's basically just IE6 and Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.3 that cannot connect.

I've tried looking on the internet about it, but until I find a solution I can just browse the internet OR listen to music.