RESOLVED.
It turns out that the mini/mini ip was the problem.
I changed it to another ip(I made up a unique but logical ip).
and applied the change in sql. ran the the server and connected with no problem.
So the other elements were apparently irrelevent (at least in this case)
I hope if someone else has this problem they find this thread.
trevius, thanks so much for your time, and I hope it wasn't a total waste
