Home network setup

Howdy, My network at home consists of the WinXP machines and my Linux machine. At one point, I was able to access the network; but now, I am not able to and even SAMBA doesn't detect a network. I have also noticed that during boot up, when the system is obtaining an IP address, the service gets backgrounded. Once I log into either KDE or GNOME, I have full access to the internet. Do you all think it's my machine or my network??? Thanks, John