Hello,
I think I may have found a different solution for this problem. I had this issue on a laptop. The internal nic would not work with either a dynamic or static IP. It did not matter which network I tried to connect to either. And like many others, I uninstalled and reinstalled just about everything I could think of. The only I could not figure out how to do was remove the TCP/IP stack from the troubled connection - apparently you just cannot do this with XP.
I never had McAfee, so while my symptoms were the same, this was not a solution that I could apply. I did a little research into Windows XP and realize that the problem could have something to do with the Internet Connection Sharingg and/or the Internet Connection Firewall. Now, both of these were disabled in my tcp/ip settings, but I read a number of KB articles relating to problems connecting via cable/dsl/lan which discussed some of the conflicts surrounding ICS/ICF.
I also noted that the the non-working connection properties (advanced tab) had a section for Internet Connection Sharing that my working connections (docking station and wireless) did not. Again, nothing was enabled.
I went into Add/Remove windows programs into Networking Services and took the check mark out of "Internet Gateway Device Discovery and Control Client (all the other boxes were unchecked).
After rebooting, the problem was resolved. The caveat here is that because I have multiple nics, I will have multiple connectoids under Network Connections when they are plugged in to the computer. The significance here is that when I rebooted with the cable in the troubled socket, both connectoids were present. Although, I did have to disable the the troubled connectoid and enable the other to achieve success. I am not sure if I would have had success without the second nic. There may be other solutions in the areas that I covered.
Best of luck
