I have recently upgraded from ADSL to Cable internet.

While a friend of mine has had no trouble getting his computer to access the
internet, mine is refusing to recognise the new connection. We are both
networked to Cable via an Ethernet switch, which in turn feeds the data to
our computers via Ethernet cards built into the motherboard.

I have swapped my Computer with his to make sure it was not a
cabling/network problem, but it still wont connect.

Is there something obvious I am missing? I have fiddled with all the
settings on the Ethernet card on my machine but seem to be getting nowhere.
One thing I have noticed is the following differences in the status/support
information of our network cards. His states the TCP/IP protocol is:

Address Type: Assigned by DCHP

and mine states:

Address Type: Automatic Private Address

Is there something I have to do to change mine to DCHP? How do I do this?

We both run Windows XP Pro SP1, with all windows updates done. Our hardware
is almost identical, and should be more than adequate to cope with a cable
connection.

If anyone can point me in the right direction it would be greatly
appreciated

Thanks in advance.

double click your local area connection icon in the task bar when the window pops up click on support then repair, see if this helps if you have not tried.