very slow net/e-mail

[uberbunny]

Ok, I have connected a new cat 5 cable to the pc, switched ports on the router, completely reinstalled the operating system, and my connection to the internet is still extremely slow. Not only that, the e-mail on outlook express is downloaded at a snails pace from the server (it is actually timing out it is so very slow).
The Pc is AMD 1800 xp
ethernect card lynksys LNE 100 TX
D-Link 4 port router.
Windows xp home edtion
40 gig WD hard drive
1 gig of ram OCZ
Abit mother board
The other pc hooked up to the router is running very well with no problems at all(using the on board lan of the ASUS A7N8X deluxe). Could someone please give me some help here? I have tried everything I know, and the connection is slower than dial up at the moment. Thanks

[Midknyte]

first things first. did you scan for viruses and spyware?
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=161595

did you do all your windows updates?

[uberbunny]

System was scanned for ad ware and virus. 2 ad ware were found and deleted, and 3 trojans were found and deleted. This had no possitive effect. It is so slow that I was unable to get the up dates on the ad ware and virus software. It keeps timing out. I am running a DSL connection, and the up date started about 300 kb...the longer it runs, the slower it becomes it seems. Was running about 9 kb just before timing out.

[uberbunny]

After scanning for virus and such, I completely reformatted the hard drive and only have Windows XP on the drive. The connection is a "little" faster, but still extremely slow. I went to the device manager and it shows all devices to be working normally.
Is is possible for the ethernet card to be bad, and yet still function somewhat? Both the yellow and green light on the ethernet card at the rear of the pc are on.
Could it be the PCI slot or slots in the motherboard be bad? A friend has another ethernet card and I was thinking to put it in using a different PCI slot to see if this made any difference.
With the refomatting of the hard drive I would think it is a hardware issue, not a software issue.
I have not been able to download all of the up dates for xp home due to "timing out" since downloads are so very slow.
Could someone please give me any idea of how to continue. I was thinking about getting another mother board and ethernet card, but I hate to just start "throwing money at it" until I have narrowed down the problem. Thanks