Every 10 seconds or so, I get a box coming up telling me my network cable is unplugged. It obviously isn't and as far as I can tell I am still connected to internet so any disconnection is obviously very brief.

It doesn't seem to be any problem, but is just annoying and I guess it is probably indicating that something is not working right.

any ideas?

If you're running XP then it's the same problem I had. I think XP is labouring under the delusion that you are running 2 networks (the internet one and the network card one) so go into the network panel and diasable the one that isn't your internet connection.

Yeah I am using XP.

I am going to need a bit more more of a "words of one syllable" list of instructions as to how to do what you told me to do!!

mine has been doing this since yesterday- i recently installed broad band- could this be something to do with it??

Sounds like the worm MSBlast

MS Blaster - shuts the pc down

Check your network connections - your bb connection should be using the network card - have look what else its trying to do.