Ping time on Sharp MX-565N

All started with error scanning to the network folders - "cannot find server". Nothing have changed since it worked an hour ago, but still re-checked server, password, username etc. - nada. Power-cycled the unit and was able to scan couple pages. It then stopped scanning again and displayed same error. Turned out that the ping time was rather huge for the LAN - over 2000-3000 ms. Anyway, reseated all network cables. Tried to ping devices on the same switch with no problem, <1ms. Even used the ports on the switch that "non-problem" devices were plugged-in to. Nothing - same issue. Sounds like the NIC in the scanner went south. Before we call the service, just wanted to check in and possibly confirm my finding about the scanner's NIC gone bad. Thanks.