>Hello,
>
>I have a 3COM 10/100Mbs NIC. This NIC is connected with my cable modem. If all goes well I get a TCP/IP address from my IP. But I have the following problem: it has happened several times that my TCP/IP address suddenly changes to 169.???.???.???. When this happens, I must reboot. I already had to reinstall my NIC twice because even a reboot wouldn't recet my TCP/IP address.
>How can I solve this problem ??

The problem is either connectivity between the provider and your cable modem, or between your system's TCP/IP protocol handler and your provider's DHCP server. The address you show is probably thesystem-assigned arbitrary value set when you've set the TCP/IP potocol to request an IP address from the provider's DHCP server, and the server either fails to respond or rejects the request for a dynamic IP address.

Rather than rebooting, try the following:

Open a DOS box
Enter the following commands exactly as shown:

IPCONFIG /RELEASE_ALL {Enter}
IPCONFIG /RENEW_ALL

This should force your NICs to drop their DHCP-assigned IP addresses and related settings, and will then request new ones from the DHCP servers.