G
Guest
Any Help Resolving This Problem Would Be Greatly Appreciated…
I have 2 computers connected to cable internet service through a wired
router (a Windows 98 older desktop and a 4 year old laptop running Win XP Pro
SP2). I have noticed since around last weekend, I intermittently lose my
internet connection on the laptop. For instance if you are surfing the web,
it just tries to go to the page, but you end up getting the Internet Explorer
page cannot be displayed message. All internet programs lose the connection
not just Internet Explorer. Sometimes the connection icon comes up as
limited connectivitly and sometimes it doesn't. I have searched the internet
and read through a lot of forums on this message boards. I found people with
pretty much the same or a similar problem, but the solutions don’t seem to
work for me. Sometimes my internet connection will work for hours, and other
times it will only last a few minutes. I even plugged a friend’s laptop in
to my laptop setup and it worked for as long as I tested it. Sometimes I can
get mine to work again for awhile if I disconnect the LAN cable from the back
of the computer and reconnect it. Other times that doesn’t work and you just
get the little connection status icon moving that circle thing back and forth
to both computer screens. When you sit on it, it says acquiring network
address. The repair button in the connection dialog box doesn’t work. I
have tired the ipconfig commands I found mentioned and none of those work. I
get an error message that said something to the effect unable to connect to
DHCP server. I then get that 169… ip address that I read about on here.
Rebooting will occasionally fix the problem, but not all the time either. I
have had this setup for a little over two years and have never had a problem
unless it was something on the ISP’s end. The windows 98 machine still
connects to the internet as usual, so I have pretty much narrowed it down to
something on the laptop not the router, cable modem, or ISP. Here are some
of the things I can recall already trying, but have not solved the problem.
I bought a new cat5 patch cable, reset the cable modem and router numerous
times, tried a different jack on the back of the router, updated the nic card
driver, uninstalled and reinstalled the network card driver, ran the ipconcig
commands mentioned here, verified that DHCP was enabled in the router
configuration screen options, tried Chucks suggestions from his networking
problems webpage such as Microsoft’s winsock2 corruption repair utility, I
tired 2 of the freeware repair a corrupted LSP / Winsock layer programs,
tried the NETSH commands at the command prompt, I installed a program to scan
for and remove spy ware (it didn’t find any), ran a complete virus scan with
my anti virus program, I tired reinstalling Windows overtop my current
installation using the repair option on the installation CD. I attempted to
assign a static IP following instructions I found online, but am unsure if I
did it completely correctly, at any rate I still was unable to connect.
Currently the connection has been working for the past hour or so, but I
don’t know how long that will last. I apologize for the long post, but this
has got me completely stumped. It is seems at this point, my only option is
to buy a new laptop, but I don’t want to have to do that.
Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions you may give.
PhilBy
I have 2 computers connected to cable internet service through a wired
router (a Windows 98 older desktop and a 4 year old laptop running Win XP Pro
SP2). I have noticed since around last weekend, I intermittently lose my
internet connection on the laptop. For instance if you are surfing the web,
it just tries to go to the page, but you end up getting the Internet Explorer
page cannot be displayed message. All internet programs lose the connection
not just Internet Explorer. Sometimes the connection icon comes up as
limited connectivitly and sometimes it doesn't. I have searched the internet
and read through a lot of forums on this message boards. I found people with
pretty much the same or a similar problem, but the solutions don’t seem to
work for me. Sometimes my internet connection will work for hours, and other
times it will only last a few minutes. I even plugged a friend’s laptop in
to my laptop setup and it worked for as long as I tested it. Sometimes I can
get mine to work again for awhile if I disconnect the LAN cable from the back
of the computer and reconnect it. Other times that doesn’t work and you just
get the little connection status icon moving that circle thing back and forth
to both computer screens. When you sit on it, it says acquiring network
address. The repair button in the connection dialog box doesn’t work. I
have tired the ipconfig commands I found mentioned and none of those work. I
get an error message that said something to the effect unable to connect to
DHCP server. I then get that 169… ip address that I read about on here.
Rebooting will occasionally fix the problem, but not all the time either. I
have had this setup for a little over two years and have never had a problem
unless it was something on the ISP’s end. The windows 98 machine still
connects to the internet as usual, so I have pretty much narrowed it down to
something on the laptop not the router, cable modem, or ISP. Here are some
of the things I can recall already trying, but have not solved the problem.
I bought a new cat5 patch cable, reset the cable modem and router numerous
times, tried a different jack on the back of the router, updated the nic card
driver, uninstalled and reinstalled the network card driver, ran the ipconcig
commands mentioned here, verified that DHCP was enabled in the router
configuration screen options, tried Chucks suggestions from his networking
problems webpage such as Microsoft’s winsock2 corruption repair utility, I
tired 2 of the freeware repair a corrupted LSP / Winsock layer programs,
tried the NETSH commands at the command prompt, I installed a program to scan
for and remove spy ware (it didn’t find any), ran a complete virus scan with
my anti virus program, I tired reinstalling Windows overtop my current
installation using the repair option on the installation CD. I attempted to
assign a static IP following instructions I found online, but am unsure if I
did it completely correctly, at any rate I still was unable to connect.
Currently the connection has been working for the past hour or so, but I
don’t know how long that will last. I apologize for the long post, but this
has got me completely stumped. It is seems at this point, my only option is
to buy a new laptop, but I don’t want to have to do that.
Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions you may give.
PhilBy