Yes, i agree, that's whats wierd, i didn't use the modem, and it was the source of all my problems (if i didn't use it how could lightning come through it?)

If the modem wan not even plugged in, its possible it just burned out. Haven't seen it happen with a modem till now, but i have seen it with a network card that had never even been plugged in to a network. not sure if it became fried due to static discharge or what.

Check the slot itself. Could be the internal contacts were bent/shorted reinserting the card.

I do wan't to check the slot, but i don't think that bent slots could be the problem, seeing as the card stopped working during the day, that is, i never even took the card out until i started working on it after it stopped working,... it is a brand name PC, and the card came in it... so unless pins magically bend, I don't see that being the reason for failure, the reason i would want to check it would be cuz of the work ive done lately... but i wouldn't have thought of that logical reason for failure myself ... i guess it just died... could dust or something else get into the slots and short it out or something like that? Thanks for everything...
-by the way, i bought a network card yesterday, and it seems to work good so far. The internal still not working...? is it possible for a surge to go through the modem, router, and hit the computer, hurt the computer, but not the modem and router?

Were you able to get the ethernet card working?

Not the internal, and since i got the PCI one last night, i know it works on my windows partition, but i just reinstalled linux (I changed partition sizes etc.) and haven't had much time to see how it works on there, will get back to you soon on how the PCI one is working, but the motherboards LAN card is not working, thanks,

A certain number of slots produced are defective, and a certain number of those get through QC, and some of those will work until continued expansion and contraction causes a card to creep out far enough to short. There's absoultely nothing magical about it.

Good luck figuring it out though... maybe the dust bunnies did it.

Haha sure, i was just wondering what could cause the short not that it is really important, but could avoid problems, how can i check the slot to see if it is defective, what do i look for?

Look down the slot. the wires should all be parallel to each other.

Ok, will do thanks.