O.T. Can't connect to the Internet

[John Doe]

I have a Dell XPS 8500, with Windows 7 Professional, SP1,
with Spywareblaster, Avast, Windows Defender and Windows
firewall.

(1) TB HD
Intel (R) Core (TM) i7-33-3770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz 3.40 GHz
Ram 12.0 GB
System type : 64-bit operating system


I also have a Dell Dimension 8200(Seagate Barracuda 7200 HD 160Gb)
with XP, SP3, with Avast and Windows firewall.

I use to have Spywareblaster, SuperAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes but
they ceased to function as well as my single click for desktop icons etc
because I contracted Adware/malware. I tried to remove it following
instructions from malwarebytes forum:

https://forums.malwarebytes.org/index.php?showtopic=143808

Unfortunately we were unable to correct the damage caused so it was
decided to re-install XP which I did but now I cannot connect to the
internet to finishing the installation by SP1a and SP3. I've called my
ISP and they said the connection was good and that it should be a
plug-n-play procedure since my 8500 is connected.

I've also checked the LAN settings to make sure the'
Automatically Detect Settings' box was checked and tried switching
the Ethernet cable on the router and that did nothing.

Thoughts/suggestions?
Robert

 

[Paul]

How was Windows XP re-installed? Via a recovery disc supplied by Dell
or from the Windows XP installation disc? For the former, the utilities
for the LAN should have been automatically re-installed. But with the
latter approach, it would be necessary to re-install the LAN drivers
from the Dell utility disc.

GR

According to his forums.malwarebytes.org , it kinda looks like a recovery disc.

The Dimension 8200 is an 850 RDRAM machine, without a NIC on
the motherboard. They install a PCI card, like a 3C905 type
card for a NIC. The drivers page lists several possible NICs.

http://downloads.dell.com/Pages/Drivers/dimension-8200-all.html#Historical Network Drivers

One ref I could find, suggests the Dell CDs are a two-CD set.
Hard to say if one of the CDs is for the drivers or not.

*******

I'd take a look at

Start : Run : devmgmt.msc

and look at the Device Manager in the fresh WinXP install,
to see how many items don't have a driver. I would
have expected a Recovery CD to have drivers integrated,
but with all the hardware options for that machine model,
it's possible to miss the odd NIC card.

The Dimension 8200 might straddle the Win2K/WinXP boundary,
so it could be a WinXP Gold install. In which case,
perhaps SP1a and SP3 would be good to add, before
trying Windows Update.

I got an SP1a here.

https://web.archive.org/web/2006041...bb4d-4613-8ee7-db69d01735ed/xpsp1a_en_x86.exe

Clicking this link should start the download immediately.
The MD5sum on the file I have sitting here already, is
MF5SUM=363af75cf99d554f8c4420448f2e0669
This link corresponds to one of the blue buttons on
the previous link.

https://web.archive.org/web/2006050...bb4d-4613-8ee7-db69d01735ed/xpsp1a_en_x86.exe

The SP3 one should be a bit easier to find.

WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe 316.0 MB (331,805,736 bytes here)
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=24

Paul

 

[John Doe]

Hello Paul,

Nice to see you again,


I reinstalled XP with a

Operating System
Reinstallation CD
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

which came with the computer along with other
disks.

I checked the Device manager and it shows (3)
yellow question marks:

? Other Devices

? Ethernet Control
? Multimedia Audio

I installed my Turtle Beach drivers, and the Multimedia
with yellow question mark went away. so now there's only

? Other Devices

? Ethernet Control

I checked my other CD's and the only one that looked like an
Ethernet driver was one from StarTech.com, it says:

driver installation CD

PEXUSB3S2
ECUSB3S2
ST100S & ST100SLP
ST1000BT32

Thoughts.suggestions?
Robert

 

[Bob F]

Hello Paul,

Nice to see you again,


I reinstalled XP with a

Operating System
Reinstallation CD
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

which came with the computer along with other
disks.

I checked the Device manager and it shows (3)
yellow question marks:

? Other Devices

? Ethernet Control
? Multimedia Audio

I installed my Turtle Beach drivers, and the Multimedia
with yellow question mark went away. so now there's only

? Other Devices

? Ethernet Control

I checked my other CD's and the only one that looked like an
Ethernet driver was one from StarTech.com, it says:

driver installation CD

PEXUSB3S2
ECUSB3S2
ST100S & ST100SLP
ST1000BT32

Thoughts.suggestions?
Robert

From the Device Manager, double click the offending device. select the "Details"
tab. Highlight and copy the 'device instance Id' listed, and google it. Look at
the first few sites found, and you should be able to identify the device. Then
just find appropriate drivers for it.

 

[John Doe]

Hello Paul,

Here's what I did,

I remembered previously using the StarTech
CD for my ethernet controllers so I installed
all (4) and the yellow question marks are gone
on the Device Manager.

I can connect to some sites e.g.MSN, Yahoo but
when trying to connect to hotmail it said my
version of Explorer needed to be updated so I
ok'd it but it couldn't complete. Also tried to
run SP1a via USB stick and it couldn't finish.

Still dealing with the Windows update page
and trying to get it to run. Also THIS site
couldn't load with the message 'The browser not
supported'.

So some things are working and some aren't.

Robert

 

[Paul]

Hello Paul,

Here's what I did,

I remembered previously using the StarTech
CD for my ethernet controllers so I installed
all (4) and the yellow question marks are gone
on the Device Manager.

I can connect to some sites e.g.MSN, Yahoo but
when trying to connect to hotmail it said my
version of Explorer needed to be updated so I
ok'd it but it couldn't complete. Also tried to
run SP1a via USB stick and it couldn't finish.

Still dealing with the Windows update page
and trying to get it to run. Also THIS site
couldn't load with the message 'The browser not
supported'.

So some things are working and some aren't.

Robert

Windows Update should be able to update itself so
that it works.

If not, you can try this "windowsupdateagent30-x86.exe".
When you click this link, dismiss the "Fixit" popup, then
you can read the page contents at your leisure.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943144

The reason that one comes to mind, is I think the
WSUSOffline thing I was using a week ago, it installed
a windowsupdateagent update, before it started downloading
stuff.

This is from the StaticDownloadLinks-wsus.txt file in
WSUSOffline. Just for comparison to what KB943144 will
give you. Looks like the same materials.

http://download.windowsupdate.com/w...one/7.4.7600.226/WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe

What that's supposed to do, is prepare your reinstall
machine for getting the Windows Updates. While it
should have "just worked", you can give that a try
if you can't get past it.

Paul