Networking nightmare...

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Guest

I have a real head scratcher here... I've been banging my head against the
wall for a couple of days now. I've stumped a friend at work who is an
MCSE, and I'm just about ready to wipe the system and start from scratch.
This is what I'm really trying to avoid.

I have a Windows XP Home Edition system with SP2 that has been running fine
for several months. This is connected to a Linksys broadband router that
does DHCP. Let me stress that this configuration has worked flawlessly for
months. The system is a custom built, that I built myself. The motherboard
is an Abit AB9 Pro that has a pair of built-in GigE network ports.

A few nights ago everything was working fine. The next morning I had no
Ethernet connectivity. I specifically mean I had no Ethernet connectivity
because my work laptop is connected to the same Linksys router and is
working fine. I tried step one of Windows troubleshooting and rebooted.
This obviously didn't work. I disabled DHCP and assigned a static IP. I
was able to ping the IP I just assigned to the card, but was unable to ping
the router. I replaced the Ethernet cable and rebooted and still nothing.

At this point I thought maybe I have a bad network port on the motherboard,
so I went out and bought a brand new Linksys Ethernet card. I installed
this and it would also NOT pickup a DHCP address. I assigned a static IP
with the same results. Out of pure frustration I went out and bought a new
broadband router, and this too made NO difference. Obviously several
reboots have occurred in this time.

I ran this by an MCSE friend at work. He suggested doing a repair install
of Windows XP and this sounded like a good idea, although I'm still stuck
without Ethernet connectivity after this. The only thing left that I can
think of is to give up and either call Microsoft (I'm not paying the money
for that), or wipe the system and re-install from scratch. The last thing
I'm going to try this evening to completely rule out hardware is to download
a Live CD version of Linux and make sure that I have network connectivity
that way. I suspect that this is some kind of TCP/IP corruption, but I have
no idea how to straighten this out.

Please help me avoid having to wipe and reload the system. I know that this
being Windows I need to do this once a year or so, but I just built this
system less than 6 months ago. Even Windows should be able to run without
having to be reloaded for that period of time. Thanks in advance for any
help.

Scott
 
Scott N "Unix Guru" said:
I have a real head scratcher here... I've been banging my head against the
wall for a couple of days now. I've stumped a friend at work who is an
MCSE, and I'm just about ready to wipe the system and start from scratch.
This is what I'm really trying to avoid.

I have a Windows XP Home Edition system with SP2 that has been running
fine
for several months. This is connected to a Linksys broadband router that
does DHCP. Let me stress that this configuration has worked flawlessly
for
months. The system is a custom built, that I built myself. The
motherboard
is an Abit AB9 Pro that has a pair of built-in GigE network ports.

A few nights ago everything was working fine. The next morning I had no
Ethernet connectivity. I specifically mean I had no Ethernet connectivity
because my work laptop is connected to the same Linksys router and is
working fine. I tried step one of Windows troubleshooting and rebooted.
This obviously didn't work. I disabled DHCP and assigned a static IP. I
was able to ping the IP I just assigned to the card, but was unable to
ping
the router. I replaced the Ethernet cable and rebooted and still nothing.

At this point I thought maybe I have a bad network port on the
motherboard,
so I went out and bought a brand new Linksys Ethernet card. I installed
this and it would also NOT pickup a DHCP address. I assigned a static IP
with the same results. Out of pure frustration I went out and bought a
new
broadband router, and this too made NO difference. Obviously several
reboots have occurred in this time.

I ran this by an MCSE friend at work. He suggested doing a repair install
of Windows XP and this sounded like a good idea, although I'm still stuck
without Ethernet connectivity after this. The only thing left that I can
think of is to give up and either call Microsoft (I'm not paying the money
for that), or wipe the system and re-install from scratch. The last thing
I'm going to try this evening to completely rule out hardware is to
download
a Live CD version of Linux and make sure that I have network connectivity
that way. I suspect that this is some kind of TCP/IP corruption, but I
have
no idea how to straighten this out.

Please help me avoid having to wipe and reload the system. I know that
this
being Windows I need to do this once a year or so, but I just built this
system less than 6 months ago. Even Windows should be able to run without
having to be reloaded for that period of time. Thanks in advance for any
help.

Scott
Click to expand...
First of all, you know too many things that aren't so. In particular,
Windows should never need
to be reloaded. My Windows 95 did need to be reloaded, but the reason was
that the disk
died. I have never yet owned an operating system that can survive a hard
crash of the system disk.
My Windows 98SE never needed a reload in 4 years of use. The Windows XP on
my desktop is over
4 years old, and it does not need that now. The Windows XP on my laptop
(which is where
I am posting) is over a year old, and it works quite well.

As for your question, one possibility is a firewall that isn't passing ICMP
packets. Windows
uses such packets for pinging and getting dhcp. So, if you cannot ping the
router, you
cannot do anything else either.

Post the results of ipconfig/all for starters. And, tell us which firewall
you are using.
You should also refer to the websites of Pchuck and MVP Jack (to name only
two good
resources) for debugging methods.

Jim
 
Scott said:
I have a real head scratcher here... I've been banging my head against the
wall for a couple of days now. I've stumped a friend at work who is an
MCSE, and I'm just about ready to wipe the system and start from scratch.
This is what I'm really trying to avoid.

I have a Windows XP Home Edition system with SP2 that has been running fine
for several months. This is connected to a Linksys broadband router that
does DHCP. Let me stress that this configuration has worked flawlessly for
months. The system is a custom built, that I built myself. The motherboard
is an Abit AB9 Pro that has a pair of built-in GigE network ports.

A few nights ago everything was working fine. The next morning I had no
Ethernet connectivity. I specifically mean I had no Ethernet connectivity
because my work laptop is connected to the same Linksys router and is
working fine. I tried step one of Windows troubleshooting and rebooted.
This obviously didn't work. I disabled DHCP and assigned a static IP. I
was able to ping the IP I just assigned to the card, but was unable to ping
the router. I replaced the Ethernet cable and rebooted and still nothing.

At this point I thought maybe I have a bad network port on the motherboard,
so I went out and bought a brand new Linksys Ethernet card. I installed
this and it would also NOT pickup a DHCP address. I assigned a static IP
with the same results. Out of pure frustration I went out and bought a new
broadband router, and this too made NO difference. Obviously several
reboots have occurred in this time.

I ran this by an MCSE friend at work. He suggested doing a repair install
of Windows XP and this sounded like a good idea, although I'm still stuck
without Ethernet connectivity after this. The only thing left that I can
think of is to give up and either call Microsoft (I'm not paying the money
for that), or wipe the system and re-install from scratch. The last thing
I'm going to try this evening to completely rule out hardware is to download
a Live CD version of Linux and make sure that I have network connectivity
that way. I suspect that this is some kind of TCP/IP corruption, but I have
no idea how to straighten this out.

Please help me avoid having to wipe and reload the system. I know that this
being Windows I need to do this once a year or so, but I just built this
system less than 6 months ago. Even Windows should be able to run without
having to be reloaded for that period of time. Thanks in advance for any
help.

Scott
Click to expand...

Open a command prompt window, run this command, and reboot:

netsh winsock reset catalog

If that doesn't fix the problem, start the computer in "Safe mode with
networking" and try pinging the router, accessing the Internet, etc.
If those things work in Safe mode, a program that runs in normal mode,
but not in Safe mode, is causing the problem. Possibilities include
firewall and antivirus programs.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
 
This may sound stupid, but have you considered that you may have some kind of
virus? I know I'm having a nightmare just loading printer software, and I
work in the industry. I had to give my laptop to one of my tech guys, and now
I can't get my own laptop to network at my home office. I've been working on
this for 3 days. I get your frustration.
 
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