Yeah, Macgyver, i had the NIC enabled in the bios if that's where you are going with that...
Well it was enabled until I DISabled it that is, after trying drivers from the cd and the website, I had to go with a PCI NIC and PCI video card...
(Thank the Maker for the used pci S3trio64 card we had lying around!)

So now it is up and stable and updated now to sp6 and IE 6, and i am posting on it now as well. So thanks again team for all your support. For real.

Oh, and WTF? no built-in defrag utility? geez.

CHEAP!!!!!