DHCP problem - ip address 169.254.xx.xx being assigned

[MarcLodge]

Hi all,
Not sure if this is the correct forum for this. If it's not, please direct me to the correct one.

A friend's daughter's laptop, running windows 7, has recently stopped accessing the internet and he has brought it round to me to see if I can find anything wrong with it. At both my house and his, the router assigns an ip address as above, which I believe means there is an error with the DHCP. I tried both the wireless adapter and the ethernet connection, and both have the same symptoms - can't connect.

In the settings for the v6 and v4 adapters, the auto assign is ticked.
When I issue ipconfig /renew it times out
I've run the netsh int ip reset file.txt command and netsh winsock reset, all to no avail.

I ran malwarebytes which found 5 nasties (trojans and rootkit) which I've removed.

I'm at a loss what to do next and am wondering whether, rather than spend time problem solving it, it might be better to easy transfer all the data off to a hard drive, re-install windows and move the data back. A bit of a nuisance, and possibly over kill, but I can see myself spending hours on this and not getting anywhere.

Can anybody let me know if there's things I've not tried to fixed this?

Marc

 

[chieftan]

Yep, a 169 address is a windows default when the DHCP server cannot be reached.

Presumably you have tried with a cat5 (RJ45) conenction and a wireless? If you have, please make sure you try it with a working system as well to make sure IP addresses are definately being assigned.

What happens if you supply a static address, as in, onfigure the IPv4 address to be in line with the routers range, which is probably a 192.168.1.xxx / 24 address? If this works then there is a definate DHCP issue with the IP statck on the cards or there is a windows issue.

You could, if the 192.168 address works, keep that on there and make sure the router does not have that address included in the DHCP range.

Confirm in the registry all the network settings.

If all this fails then saving off the required information and re-installing the OS could help, but make sure you have all the drivers handy. An even better option would be a restore, if you have created the backup (a useful tool with indows Vista and 7). Or, in future use ghosting software to create the backup for a restore.

 

[edfair]

Time to delete the hardware from the operating system and disabling it from CMOS settings to get a clean system. Then enabling in CMOS and let it attempt to install again.

It will probably require you to get the hardware drivers from the laptop manufacturer's site and load/transfer from an external device, burned CD or memory stick.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[gr8tWeslEy]

The IP address 169.254.blah blah your sytem is getting as you may be aware is an automatic private IP address given
iff(if and only if), your system can not contact the dhcp server

Therefore, three things you would do before you think of re-installin windows is to, plug another system on the network
and see if they are able to lease an ip adress from the dhcp server, if it can then your server is okey, try a different
working network cable to be certain and lastly,i would rather you went to services and restarted DHCP client service on
that laptop.