Sephiroth, took a look at the thread. Bummer. At least it's a small consolation that it's "them" and not "you".
I had no idea dsl providers use MAC, since Bell Canada uses just the user/password system using a connection manager program. They permitted (at least last year) 2 different pc's to be connecected (using conection sharing).
Re NICS, My Nr. 2 PC is an MSI Ultra KT-4 (6590)and (fortunately???) didn't come with an on board NIC. But, I've had trouble in the past with a NIC that failed. I got a new one that worked. Later I assembled another pc and moved the failed NIC to it and it is still there working on my Nr. 1 pc (Asus A7V8X mobo) Go figure. This stuff is enough to drive a guy to drink sometimes. have a beer on me!