Open up a DOS prompt (Start Menu>Run>"cmd"). Type "ping 213.xxx.xxx…". You should get a few lines of text. If you get "Reply from a.b.c.d: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128" or something like that (anything with "Reply from" as the beginning), then that means that you can see the other machine. If you dont get replies, then there is either some missing wires or something unplugged on either side (client or server), or the server is turned off/otherwise inaccessible to anyone.
If you were successful with a PING, the next thing to try is telnet, type "telnet 213.xxx.xxx... 80" (note the " 80" after the ip). If the DOS window blacks out, and the cursor moves to the top-left of the window, then you have successfully connected to the web page. At this point, it means IE is broken in some way; You can try a better browser, like Firefox. If telnet gave you an error message, copy it here and we can continue the investigation.
One thing I forgot, IP addresses aren't always globally visible. If the IP address begins with 169, 192, 10, or 127 (and there may be a few more) it wont be visible across the internet. 169s are automatically generated when a computer has no connection to any network; 192s and 10s are generally behind a NAT (which means that within the NAT, the 192 or 10 address is valid, but outside its not); 127 is the loopback. If your server is behind a NAT, you will have to modify your NAT settings to forward incoming connections on port 80 to the server's NAT ip, and outside people will have to connect to the NAT's ip (not the server's NAT ip, but the NAT's real global ip; confusing, aint it? i'm not really sure how to explain it without confusing myself).
oh, and i'm assuming this whole time that you are trying to connect to an http or web server (since u were using IE).
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