Lessons Learned From My Digital Pal

I used my PC Saturday night. It worked flawlessly, and as usual, I left it on. I leave my PC on virtually 24/7.

I got up Sunday and played a couple of games of solitaire. I looked and saw that I had email that had come in earlier, one asking me to respond to my Happy Birthday wishers. I went to blogger's comments, and got an error.
I tried refresh, -error. I tried pinging Google, no DNS. I tried logging into my router, couldn't get there even though I use the numeric IP address to get it.
By this point I'm getting perturbed. Go to look at my router, make sure the power is on and it is. I look at the link lights, three connections as usual. Wait, one of them has only two of the three LEDs lit. Try the cable in a couple of the other sockets. Shite, I vacuumed last night, so maybe I pulled the cable loose from one of the connections.
Find my crimper tool look through half a dozen boxes I might have left it in. Not there. Look on the shelf under my PC, there it is. I unplug both ends of the cable from my PC and router. Stick the end into the tool, squeeze to assure connection. Plug in both ends. Same thing, the PC thinks its connected, one link light out, so I've concluded its one pair of the cable out. Well I haven't been kinking the cable so I don't think the actual wires are broken, just the connector ends aren't making contact.
Time's ticking, I still haven't responded to my friends.
Crap, gotta find my connectors, they're not with the tool as I had them before. Back through the half dozen boxes, there they are.
Back to the PC & router, unplug the two cable ends. Grab my wire cutters, cut off the ends. Grab a razor knife, carefully score the sheath, strip the outer sheath off, grab the end I just removed for the color reference. Straighten the wires and arrange them, white/orange, orange, white/green, blue, white/blue, green, white/brown, brown. Cut the ends off even, insert into the connector, confirm I haven't inadvertently rearranged the wires, insert into crimper tool, and crimp. Pull the other end out so I can work in the light, instead of under the desk with the dust bunnies. Same thing, cut, strip, straighten, arrange, cut, insert, confirm, insert, and crimp. Time's ticking. Plug both ends in.
Darn it! Same thing, two of three LEDs lit. Oh no, its the NIC on my motherboard. Just want to make sure its not the cable, so let me plug in something else instead of the PC. Pull out a brand new NIC card, still has the cellophane wrap on the box. Pull the PC end of the cable, plug it in. No LEDs lit. It needs power. I don't yet feel like unplugging all the cables from the back of the PC.
Well there's an old hub, Ok. Plug the cable into the hub. No LEDs lit. Crap. Find a power cord to plug in the hub.
Dig through the closet, found one.
Plug it into the hub, then the power recepticle. Power LED is on, no connect LEDs on it are lit. Wait, this would need a crossover cable the way I have it wired. OH, unplug it and plug it into the WAN connector of the hub. Lights, both ends. Crap!, the cable is good, means the PC isn't.
Well, I at least have a good PCI NIC. Unplug the cable and power from the hub. Turn off the PC.
I don't feel like this now, need to eat something. Eat. Procrastinate.
Well, I need to get back up. Just for grins, lets turn on the PC and see if it was something needing to be reset.
Plug in the cable, turn on the PC.
DOH!