Not sure if it's related at all but I have a bit of an iffy NIC on a PC which takes aaaages to establish a connection after reaching the desktop but I can usually speed things up a bit by pinging my router, my modem, then an external IP in succession. I created a batch file to do it for me. Not sure why this is happening exactly, never experienced it before and from time to time the NIC decides there's no cable attached and the connected light doesn't show on the router either, can fix that by unplugging/plugging the cable several times until the light shows...
Been meaning to get an Intel NIC for ages now, must get round to buying one!!