@thesizzler: What is your setup? You are on a LAN, with the university? Do you have to manually specify an IP address and / or DNS server, or do you use DHCP?
Try the "Repair" function, right-click on your connection from
Control Panel>Network Connections (Classic View)
or
Control Panel>Network and Internet Connections>Network Connections (Category View)
then hit "Repair"
Try running a ping command from the cmd prompt:
ping
www.google.com-See if there is a response.
Try running ipconfig /all from a cmd prompt, what does that give you? (Use the directions for posting your FS2 directory in my siggy, except instead of typing dir /s "C:\Games\FreeSpace2"> type in ipconfig /all> )
Other things you could try:
In the advanced properties of your Ethernet card, (System Properties->Hardware->Device Manager) check and see what your connection rate is. Sometimes if it's set to "Auto", it will work if set to "Force 100 Full Duplex" (or the correct setting for your connection) -- just remember what it was set to when you start, and put it back, if changing it doesn't help.
I hope something helps here.