After update I can't connect to the internet in no way, shape or form

Question

I rarely update because: 1) something always breaks when you update (like now) and 2) I don't like to deal with new crap like GNOME 3. Anyway:
I bought a new router (TL-WR1043N) and configured it with an old Ubuntu because connecting to 192.168.1.1 didn't work on any of my Arch Linux installations. Now... here's where it all starts... I can't use the 'n' wireless on my laptop since I have to install something to use WPA, and to install that I need to update, but I don't want to deal with GNOME 3 and Firefox >3. But I gave up eventually gave up and connected my laptop to the router by Ethernet cable. Setting that up was very easy: 'ifconfig eth0 up; dhcpcd'. Voila! I updated my whole system and restarted. To see how badly I damaged my system I opened Nautilus (I use Openbox with some GNOME programs): shock and dismay, the fonts are visible from the moon. I guess I'll have to quit using GNOME programs completely now but I expected that. I used to use KDE back in the day and when KDE4 came forth from that unholy pit, I immediately abandoned it for GNOME. This time we had more time to prepare, everybody knew what GNOME 3 was going to be. I started using Openbox quite a long time ago.
Anyway: Now to fix my wireless right? WRONG! I can't connect to the internet on cable to get the packages for wireless. I installed Windows 7 64 on the same laptop and it connects to the cable. Ubuntu 9.10 Live also connects, but due to the changes of rc.conf and network stuff I can't connect at all with Arch Linux.
So I decided to abandon it completely and reinstall from scratch. But the Live CD also doesn't work. With all the ways I've tried it all comes down to this:
dhcpcd always times out waiting for a carrier and 'ip addr' shows 'eth0: <NO-CARRIER, ....' if the interface is up. I'm not sure what information I should give you, but I can't paste any here since I can't connect to the damn internet on that laptop.
About the router: the cable is plugged on port 1 and the LED for it flashes if I reboot the computer. In Windows it stops flashing while it connects and flashes again when connected. I removed 'network' from DAEMONS and it flashes till I start it with '/etc/rc.d/network start'. This hangs for a while and returns '[DONE]' even though it doesn't work and the LED never flashes again on the router.
In rc.conf I have exactly what the example says for DHCP. In any case, it doesn't work with the Live CD either.
EDIT 1: From lscpi: painstakingly typed:
06:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61)
07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconducctor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 01)
EDIT 2: Just to be clear: I can use the wireless on the laptop on the Live CD, but I want to use the cable because of the greater speed (94Mbit/s on cable 60 something on wireless n, 20 something on g) and because I rarely move the laptop.
EDIT 3: lspci -v shows "Kernel driver in use: r8169   /   Kernel modules: r8169", so the driver is loaded.
EDIT 4: So if I boot from the CD. ip addr shows:
eth: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1d:92:...etc... brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
And  the LED flashes. When I type: "ifconfig eth0 up" it stops, never to light up again and ip addr shows: "eth: <nO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN qlen 1000
Last edited by imtired (2011-09-08 12:36:51)

Answer 1

When you're in Arch, use output redirection
lspci >lspci.out
then boot into Ubuntu or something where you can access the files and the BBS,  Of course, don't forget to use a new file for each command output.
The new network config in rc.conf is not that complicated (wired anyway; never used wireless).  OTOH I've had issues on two machines where I have to restart the network daemon (rc.d restart network) or rerun netcfg (netcfg eth0) after boot to get connectivity. And I still haven't come to grips with the ip command.