Thanks for all of your replies regarding my issue of trying to convert from a wireless to a wired network. I sincerely appreciate the time that you have taken to do that. I think that I've finally solved the problem a couple of hours ago.
For the last month, as time and illness allowed, I've spent many hours on my own and have spoken to a few IT people with no success to solve the problem as to why the main computer would not recognize the wired connection to the Actiontec 784 DSL modem/router. What appeared in the Windows Network Center was something like "unidentified public network", not the name of my network. I had disabled the wireless card and transferred its settings to the wired card. I had 2 different IP addresses for the wireless and wired cards. The wired LAN card would not recognize the name of my network.
It finally occurred to me to "uninstall" and reinstall the wired card electronically. That has done the trick. Over the next couple of days we will see if the speed is improved adequately. I suspect that it may not be. The main computer's wired connection speed to the Actiontec is 100Mbps, my i7 laptop runs wirelessly at 144, and the other clients run wirelessly between 62 and the 90s. I suspect that those drop considerably when a few of us are accessing the database at one time.
All of the desktop computers have one gigabyte ethernet cards, and I am thinking of connecting them all together to a Netgear JGS516PE unmanaged 16 port switch with cat6 plenum rated cable and cat6 connectors, using a Klein Tools VDV 226-107 RJ 45 stripper . I would probably leave the printers wireless.
Thanks again!
Norm
