Help Fixing a Friends Computer?!?!

Try installing another OS on it, such as Ubuntu, that pretty much houses drivers for everything. Most network adapters don't generally come with a lot of trouble-shooting tools since they're fairly inexpensive.

Well, I just formatted the computer and put an old windows xp cd on it. Would i need to format it again and put ubuntu on it? Or just like make a live cd?
Your saying sort-of dual-booting ubuntu and windows xp? If so, how do i make the cd that can be installed on windows or whatever you said. I"ve tried making an ubuntu cd before many times, but they usually come with errors and whatnot? Like, the cd comes out bad because its such a big file.

In Terms of the drivers, thats probably it, i installed them once i belive, but it might have been taken out when i was playing around with them. I'm checking now to see if it has sound. If not, then the drivers are out.

Well, I just formatted the computer and put an old windows xp cd on it. Would i need to format it again and put ubuntu on it? Or just like make a live cd? Your saying sort-of dual-booting ubuntu and windows xp? If so, how do i make the cd that can be installed on windows or whatever you said. I"ve tried making an ubuntu cd before many times, but they usually come with errors and whatnot? Like, the cd comes out bad because its such a big file.

No, you don't need to format it again. Just download the Desktop Edition version from http://www.ubuntu.com and burn the CD image file (.iso) to a CD with InfraRecorder. Boot the computer from the CD (may require a change of the boot order in BIOS) and you'll be able to try out Ubuntu without making any changes to the computer. I think you can make an approximation of an integrity check from the CD itself. Debian is a bit more secure on that front, but getting Debian live CDs to work is a pain.

(Ubuntu is actually faster than Windows 7 these days (the feeling of general laggardness in earlier versions has been removed, too) and it emulates Windows applications pretty well with a native application that isn't Wine.)