Can connect to Internet but cannot go further

[cbs604]

Here's an interesting one.

New PC (only a couple of months out of the box) has been working fine until recently. It can connect to the Internet OK (tried it using 2 different ISPs) but it cannot access web pages or send/receive email. (Work Offline in both OE and IE are UNchecked)

Have checked all settings in Internet Connection properties and compared with a known good setup. A/v is up to date and working; don't know about any other nasties, but it does not display any strange behaviour apart from this one.

PC is in another state and I have been trying to diagnose over the phone. Any thoughts on what else to check?



Cheers,
Brodie

 

[micker377]

Turn off firewall and try.

 

[cbs604]

Both a/v (trendmicro internet security 2004) and XP firewall turned off.

Cheers,
Brodie

 

[bcastner]

faq779-4625

 

[toonei]

Are you behind a router? If you are, try resetting it by powering it off and then on again, do the same if you are on a cable or DSL modem.

Are the lights on the NIC working? Maybe you have a bad NIC.

What kind of connection do you have? Dialup or Broadband?

Are you sure you are connected? Have you done an ipconfig/all? This would be the first thing to try....

This will tell you if you are getting an ip address, dns, etc. have you tried pinging the loopback address and then a computer or website on the internet? Try your loopback address first, that will tell you if your TCP/IP settings on your machine are okay, and then go from there.

What OS is your machine and the one you are trying to fix? You could try using MSN messenger or another remote control program to work on the remote machine, makes diagnosing much easier. There are some that give you a trial period so it would not cost you anything. Do a Google search for Remote Administrator or NetOp, both are very good remote control programs. See if you can connect in with these, maybe not, depends on the problem you are experiencing.

 

[cbs604]

toonei, it's a stand-alone winXP with dial-up.

I tried setting up remote assistance but I kept getting "remote assistance connection could not be established because the remote host name could not be resolved" when I accepted the invite, so had to troubleshoot over a scratchy phone with a sister-in-law who is a tad flakey when it comes to computers.

I had her manually check for signs of hi-jackers, even walked her through the registry (that was scarey !) looking for known signs of nasties, but - nothing.

In the end we did a system restore to prior to the trouble beginning, and VOILA! all is now well. So we will never know what it was. Pity.

Now.... let's figure out why that Remote Assistant wouldn't co-operate.



Cheers,
Brodie

 

[bcastner]

Brodie,

Did you happen to see my recent FAQ on name resolution issues under Remote Desktop? faq779-4656

 

[cbs604]

Yes I did, Bill, but I thought it didn't apply here because it is XP Home.

Anyway, the saga continues.... it only lasted a couple of days after the rollback to a good restore point, and I have been trying to fix the problem over the phone ever since. I have emailed her cwshredder and hijackthis (via a neighbour) to check for any nasties.

Meanwhile, I got her to run ipconfig /all and it showed up an IP address consistant with her ISP. Then I got her to run Network Diagnostics. Pinging the incoming mail server passed, the outgoing mail server failed and both DNS servers failed. I have confirmed the DNS server addresses are correct for this ISP.

Any ideas?

Cheers,
Brodie

 

[bcastner]

Many ISPs will refuse ICMP traffic requests at the moment. So a ping to an ISP DNS server failing is no surprise.

 

[cbs604]

This has been going on for several days now. I can ping those addresses OK from another machine.

Bill, do you think this might be a candidate for the LSPFix routine?



Cheers,
Brodie

 

[bcastner]

It would not hurt, although if she runs Hijack it will show bad lsp entries.

Did you run WinsockFix?

http://members.shaw.ca/techcd/VB_Projects/WinsockFix.zip

 

[mrshughes]

What kind of connection do you have? Dial up or Broadband connection? Are you getting a true connection? Reset yor modem and use init string,Reset tcp ip settings, Check ip address, Check dun and networking settings, Delete and Recreate dialer. Run hyperterminal.