Unidentified Network / Unable To Contact DHCP Server

I just moved to Auckland, NZ from the USA to go to school at the university here, and am having a problem connecting to the internet in the university residence hall in which I am living.Wifi is not available in the residence halls, so we need to use an Ethernet cable. When I plug in my computer, the network adapter icon says Identifying for a while then settles on Unidentified Network with no internet access, the IP is 169.x.x.x.When I try to release and renew the IP, it says unable to contact your DHCP server, request has timed out".I've tried multiple Ethernet cables, both brand new.I tried connecting to a port in a friend's room in the same building, and even in a classroom on campus, and both had the same result.Naturally after all that I assumed my NIC somehow died overnight while I traveled here, so I went to a computer repair shop expecting to have some hardware replaced, but we plugged it in there and it worked immediately so they weren't sure what to tell me.

I've gone through pages of old threads at this forum and others like it, trying solutions but having no luck.I've power cycled my computer, obviously I can't power cycle the whole network as it's for 200 people, but the IT people here have tried resetting it for me on their end as best they can. [code]