You want to rule out a fault on the Physical level or wereever and ping via the MAC address. That way you know the card, cables and hubs are working ok and the problem is to do with the computer ...

The IP isn't configured yet so I can't test connectivity that way. I do know the MAC address. Can I "ping" the MAC address to check connectivity that way? I'm running a variety of Windows OS's.

The useful program ping can ... that address responds, ping displays statistics on the response time. If the computer does not respond, ping displays a warning message; in that case, you know ...

This can be a human-readable domain name, like www.example.com, or an Internet protocol address ... your Mac desktop, then typing "terminal." Once you've loaded the Terminal, type "ping" followed ...