Unable to browse, but able to PING

[internetjunkietiff]

Ok, so, I have Windows XP Pro SP2 with all updates installed. I have been so fed up with my computer that I reformatted and reinstalled, I only have the window's firewall installed at this time. What happens is that I am able to browse for some time.... anywhere from 1-12 hours, then I start getting page cannot be displayed. I go to the command line and I am able to ping EVERYTHING (

http://www.abc.com,

etc). I have a home network, with a Linksys Router, and Comcast High Speed Cable internet. All the other computers in the house work fine. I am getting really frustrated. I know it's something with my computer causing the internet connection problems. This started when I got my MSI motherboard. I don't know what to blame though, since I'm still able to ping. I restart and all is well again, for at least an hour. It's getting really frustrating. Oh, and while i am unable to browse, I am still able to chat on AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc, unless I get disconnected and then it will not reconnect. Any suggestions? I do have a secondary hard drive with files on it, is it possible this may be a virus that isn't being picked up by the virus scanning software I have used?

 

[internetjunkietiff]

Ok, first off, I myself was an internet support rep for almost 2 years with @home, comcast, at&t etc. I know how to check my settings. Please, believe me, they are all correct. The only thing that changed before I started having the problem was my motherboard. I had to change it because the board itself got shorted. Long story. Anyway. I do not have another board I can swap out to try with my hard drive. It is SATA and I unfortunately cannot afford to go out and buy a new board at this time. Again, another Long Story.

I have done a complete format and install of Windows. I have ran multiple virus scans, malware detectors, etc. I have used multiple browsers, I have installed a secondary NIC, I have disabled the onboard NIC on the BIOS, I have done everything I can possibly think of! Short of buying a different brand of board. I had this same board before, had the problem. Took it back and got a different one, same manufactuor. Same Problem. But I had waited like 3 months so I forgot that I had the problem I had before. I didn't really have the computer running for long, maybe a day and got mad.

I will be downloading, chatting, browsing for HOURS, then all the sudding, I cannot browse. I can still chat, and, if I am downloading something, it will continue to download until I disconnect from the server. I can even go in and ping and url that is pingable.

All my computers have the same settings. Mine is the only one with the problem. So, I just don't know anymore. I feel like my technical abilities are questioned in here. I know what I'm doing! What I find so strange is that it happens after an undetermined amount of time, it's different each and every time. Anything I run says that they cannot find a problem. My Winsocks are good, nothing is running on hijack this other than intended programs. I can't see anything that would cause this.

 

[burtsbees]

Can you take the hard drive and put it into a different system for a few days?
It's hard to help when you are limited to what you can do---I would put the hard drive into a different system first, then maybe the motherboard (though I can't see how that could cause your problem).
If it does the same thing in a different system with your hard drive, then it is obviously something on the hard drive (like Internet Exposer...Explorer, sorry). If it does not do the same thing with the hdd in a different system, I would blame the motherboard, or take the system to a priest and have the Spirits of Infermity driven out of it.

Burt

 

[burtsbees]

Also, is there a way to clear NAT translations in that router? If it were a Cisco, I could tell you how....

Burt

 

[internetjunkietiff]

No, I cannot put the hard drive into another system. Again, it's SATA, and this motherboard is the only board I haven't that's SATA. I used this harddrvie with no problems on my previous motherboard and did not have this browsing error. I know for a fact it's not a problem with internet explorer because it was doing the same thing when I used Firefox. I was using firefox all the time when it happened at the beginning, and so I would try to browse in internet explorer and it also would not be working! So essentially I have already ruled both of these issues out! Plus, since I have formatted and installed windows at least 3 or more times, I don't see how this can be a browser issue. (I have used different versions of windows, as well as different discs to verify that it wasn't a missing file, etc) If the problem was my router wouldn't it affect all my pc's?

 

[burtsbees]

It would not necessarily affect all the pc's---NAt works with a dynamic dhcp scope or statically assigned IP addresses---if the computers all have the same IP addresses for a while, the router may be translating via NAT instead of PAT, leaving you with less translations. In essence, when they cannot be translated anymore, then no more browsing. It may happen to only one IP address, or many---depends on the router. You are kind of stuck without being able to stick the hdd in another system---you could easily narrow it down to mobo or hdd. Don't know what to tell you---we have a few more suggestions, but if you cannot do them, then...well, I don't know---something is causing the problem, and if you only eliminate the possibilities in your mind, well, we can't help you. You know that there is an extreme offchance that it is the mobo, but you cannot test this by putting the hdd in a different system.

Burt

 

[kjv1611]

So far, we've got this:
[UL]
[LI]OS Reinstall doesn't work.[/LI]
[LI]It doesn't appear to be malware, based on scans run on the machine.[/LI]
[LI]It SHOULDN'T be a driver problem[/LI]
[/UL]

So, my thinking is that it is something to do with the network adapter itself as already mentioned. If you want to try something else first, maybe you can do a hard reset of your router.

Otherwise, run out and pick up a $5 or $10 network card, and plug that in, see if it works. If it does, then maybe there's some minor little problem with your onboard adapter.

One additional thought is this: have you tried a different network cable to connect to your router?

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[burtsbees]

He would not be able to ping if the cable was bad.

Burt

 

[kjv1611]

On the cable, I was just thinking that maybe one of the wires within the cable could be bad, thus making it possible to ping, but maybe not able to communicate over a particular protocol. That part was just a guess, since there are 8 individual wires in the cable.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[burtsbees]

True, but for 10/100MB, only 4 are used---the other 4 are used for GB ethernet. If anything, if one of the wires is broken and you still had communications, it would be half-duplex.

Burt

 

[sinephase]

I work internet tech support and actually had a lady who's been bounced between my company and gateway for the past two months for the same kind of issue. By the time she called me, she was completely unable to browse, but still able to ping by URL. She was referred once again back to us because in Vista when she tried to diagnose the connection it said something about the DNS configuration being bad. This to me sounds mainly that whatever microsoft server the diagnostic was trying to ping was just the one which was unavailable to her, as I said she can ping by URL.
So we flushed DNS, restored TCP/IP, all to no avail. Back to OEM, anyway.
This is the issue which prompted me to search forums for similar issues, and thus ended up here.

In the end I suggested that she get her NIC drivers reinstalled by gateway, I suggested this mainly because when I just recently reinstalled windows on my machine which never had any connectivity issues before, I had the SAME issue.
My connection would be fine for, say, half an hour to 4 hours and then drop out. Strange things would happen where sometimes I couldn't renew IP, but could still browse.
All basic troubleshooting done, and getting tired of restoring TCP/IP,
I removed and reinstalled my NIC drivers, as our level 3 guys said they sometimes do when troubleshooting DHCP server errors.

Lo and behold, haven't had the problem since. I know it makes no sense, since it was a fresh install of windows. For some reason (as we have all probably seen with software) it was just a bad install of the drivers.

One other thing, it is best to make sure that your ethernet is not plugged into the machine while performing the operations just because it is the safest and most controlled way to do it.

So, unless I missed something in the above posts, did you actually try to uninstall the drivers before reinstalling or updating them? Also, was the ethernet cable plugged in while you did it?

Hope this helps you, I know I hate it when there aren't any good answers.