Highly unlikely that DHCP has anything to do with the problem. DHCP just assignes IP addresses for NIC's on the network automatically. I disabled mine as I run a Linux/Apache webserver on my home network - which requires a static IP address to enable port forwarding through my modem
Your system is recognising the hardware, so the only other possibility is that the drivers aren't loading. I will do some digging around to find out what drivers are loaded in safe/networking mode and get back to you.
Were there any TCP/IP related errors in the system log? (see eventvwr above)
Edit:
BOAC if you use the "/bootlog" parameter in your "boot.ini" file, then having rebooted your machine in Safe/Network mode, have a look at "ntbtlog.txt" in the Windows directory.
Use Notepad and do a search for NVENETFD.SYS. This is the NVidia network chipset driver. Make sure it's being loading. You might also need to check that the following DLL's "fdco1.dll" and "fdco1ins.dll" are located in "WINDOWS/system32" directory.
Last edited by alisoncc; 21st April 2010 at 10:10.