No internet on home network (98)

Hi,
my home netowrk is working except for I can't get the client computer to access the net. Yes I've dowloaded a fresh copy of AVG and scanned it. Yes I've got Internet connection sharing turned on on the host. Yes I can scan/see the host drives from the client, and see/scan the client drives from the host, shift files around etc..
I think all the obvious things I've done.
Now, for help on the unobvious
regards
Matt

 

Right click on the IE icon on your desktop and click properties>connections>Lan and check the auto detect settings box click apply >ok then reboot.

 

been there, done that.
What I find really annoying is that it used to work, then about a month ago packed up. Got it working again, but I've tried what I did before.
ICS won't stay loaded in windows programs, no matter how many times I load it (on the client computer). Figure that as its the client it doesn't need to be loaded so windows won't let it.
Host just sits there saying" no computer accessing ICS".

 

I use PPPShar to share my internet. It works well and is very simple.