Limited or no Connectivity XP Home SP2 w/USB adapter

[Ryan Young]

Hi all. I'm trying to add a laptop to my network that is running Windows XP
Home SP2 and has a SMC compact USB to Ethernet adapter, for which the
drivers are installed. I have gone through the network settings and
everything appears the same on it as all the other computers, but I have no
internet or file sharing. Nobody else shows up in the network places. Can
anyone shed some light on this?

 

[Paul Woodsford]

Do you have a 3rd party Firewall, not the XPSp2 firewall, on the laptop?
If so uninstall it. Re-run the Network wizard. Once everything is working,
re-install the 3rd party firewall.
If you have just the XP firewall make sure it is setup correctly for
file/printer sharing.

 

[Ryan Young]

Paul,

There is no third party firewall installed, and at the moment XP firewall is
disabled.

 

[GTS]

1. Check in Device Manager under network adaptors whether the USB adaptor
is shown working correctly.
2. If so, run ipconfig /all in a cmd prompt and let us know the results.

I assume you're connecting the laptop to a router? Is that the case?

 

[Ryan Young]

Since my last post, the network connection status now says connected, but
still no network or internet activity.

The computer's USB adapter is working correctly, and is connected to a
router.

results of ipconfig /all:
Windows IP configuration
host name terrylaptop
primary dns
node type unknown
ip routing enabled no
WINS proxy enabled no
DNS suffix search list inetlink.ca

Ethernet Adapter Local Area Connection 2
connection specific dns suffix inetlink.ca
description SMC compact usb to ethernet adapter
physical address 00-e0-4c-03-04-79
dhcp enabled yes
autoconfiguration enabled yes
ip address 192.168.0.5
subnet mask 255.255.255.0
default gateway 192.168.0.1
dhcp server 192.168.0.1
dns servers 192.168.0.1

Thanks!

 

[Ryan Young]

Checked the computer again and now it is not connected - "Limited or no
connectivity"

 

[GTS]

Your ipconfig results indicate that the computer is communicating with the
router and was assigned proper IP address.
Are you sure you're spyware and virus free?
It appears that there may be a damaged TCP stack although the loss of
connection you report later raises other questions.

Try running this in a command prompt and then rebooting
netsh winsock reset catalog

If that doesn't work, you might try WinSock XP Fix 1.2 from
http://www.spychecker.com/program/winsockxpfix.html

 

[Ryan Young]

Funny thing is this is a clean, fresh install of XP home SP2 that hasn't
been running for 48 hours!

At the moment, I've disabled and enabled the network a few times and changed
that laptop to a different workgroup, and now have it sharing files. But
still no internet.

Funny how disabling and enabling changes the status. When it looses
connectivity, the indicator lights on the adapter go dead - unplug & plug in
or disable & enable will wake it up again.

Should I still try the other suggestions mentioned here?

 

[GTS]

It seems like there may be 2 different problems. The loss of the
connection and the inability to connect to the Internet while you can
connect shares.
re. the connection loss - Has the laptop gone into standby? Is there any
power management setting on the NIC? Some devices don't resume well. I
suppose there could also be a hardware or driver problem with the USB
adaptor. Is anything else running on USB that could involve a power issue?
When it loses the connection does Device Manger still show the hardware as
functioning? I'm guessing it will since disabling/reenabling the connection
worked.

re. Internet access - I would check that the connection settings in Internet
Options are correct. If so, possibly the TCP fixes I mentioned will help.
They won't do any harm to try but certainly shouldn't be necessary on a
newly installed system.

Are you sure there's nothing running that could interfere? You might try a
selective startup with msconfig disabling start up items.
--

 

[Ryan Young]

To answer the questions:

- no other USB devices are connected
- the laptop is in full power mode, no standby
- the device still shows as functioning, but I loose connectivity
- there are no other things running during startup

I'm not sure what's going on. I am suspecting bad USB ports (tried 'em
both) or a bad adapter. Just about ready to give up on it.

 

[GTS]

I concur, particularly re. suspecting the adaptor. I would also try a
different cable and a different port on the router. It sure sounds like
you've covered all the normal bases.
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