Soltek MOBO has ethernet but...

My computer (AMD xp 3200, Soltek mobo from 3 years ago, 1 gig ram and BFG 6800 GT) is unable to connect to the internet (was trying to upgrade to a newer external modem that uses Ethernet rather than the USB that the old one was using. So I have reverted to the old modem using usb ports in the meanwhile till I can make headway in this matter.

Tried reinstalling the CD that came with the Soltek mobo, it's a old mobo, think nforce2 chipset and using pc 3200 memory. The exact type of Mobo escapes me at the moment as I am at work atm.

Tried downloading the amd xp 64 drivers and the 2004 drivers off nvidia (was directed there by an couple articles that I Googled (although they may be out dated)

How do i get the computer to actually acknowledge that i DO have an ethernet card on my mobo. do I have to remove the display drivers and all related components and do a fresh download/reinstall of the software? Especially with the most recent nvidia drivers? Seems that all the downloads overlap eachother be it drivers for the videocard, drivers for the motherboard (IDE/Ethernet)

Please forgive me if I'm all over the place but am scratching my head as my computer prowess consists purely with downloading and installing/uninstalling of online games.

*bow*

P.S. went into properties but I don't seem to see an "ethernet" (that green card icon thingy) any where in advanced setting and/or network settings. I did do a search and all I could come up with that had anything to do with Ethernet was 2 folders (which I downloaded from nvidia and soltek) tried downloading the ethernet component in one or both of those folders and restarted my computer (several times) but the computer doe not seem to recognize the ethernet (although on one startup it did say "hardware found, ethernet but it seems like I'm missing an step to make the recognition actually stick and show up in properties in order for the internet connection through ethernet to the modem to be viable and working!