Move ethernet or sound card to PCIe x1 w/adapter?

Hi, thanks for reading & trying to help me!

Q: Do I buy a different ethernet card that goes in PCIe x1 from the start or remove the sound card from the PCI slot & put it there (thereby losing sound card)? Or is there an adapter that will work?


History: I have a Lenovo IdeaCentre K210 that I got out of the "destruct bin" when I worked at MicroCenter for 36 bucks. It was in there because it was taking too long to figure out it's exact problem, they said it was either then mother board or the processor. I replaced the hard drive & power supply. It worked with my Sprint air card for a couple months then stopped recognizing it in any usb I plugged into though other usb devices worked in the same ports. I, being a little lazy, just moved back to my laptop. Now I have an 8gig cable connection & want the speed of the laptop. I re-installed Vista 64-bit (I know, my first mistake but it'll be a while before I can afford to upgrade to W7) but it seems that the ethernet connection on the mother board is not working. Tried to just use usb but can't get it to recognize any software that I download from the manufacturer. So I bought a new ethernet card, forgetting to check what ports were open first. It's PCI ver. 2.2 (Netgear Gigabit Ethernet PCI Adapter GA311) which appears to go in the only matching slot that currently holds my sound card. The PCIe x16 slot has a video card in it. There are two empty PCIe x1 slots.

Sorry this is so long but I didn't know exactly what info to include to get an answer & figure there's no point in making people start off by asking...so I hope I included everything!