worried ethernet hardware broke

[eastux]

I've been running a gentoo system for about 3 months. I recently decided to try an installation from stage 1 just to see what it was like. I did both installations using a livecd. During my first installation, I never had a problem with the livecd automatically creating my eth0 connection. However, for this installation, it originally only worked sporadically and now it doesn't work at all. I know my dsl connection is ok because my other computer boots up ok with it. So i'm basically worried that my broadcom ethernet hardware built into my motherboard doesn't work anymore. When I use lspci, it comes up.

Is there anyway I can prove that the hardware doesn't work anymore?

Thanks.

[eyoung100]