Perplexing problem

[Guest]

Hi,
This is a doozy, so I appreciate anyone who appreciates a challenge for
tackling this.

Current environment:
- DSL modem
- Linksys wireless router
- 2 PCs (work laptop and home laptop) both have successfully connected
802.11g wireless to the internet through the router within the past week and
over the last year
- both PCs run XP

Current situation:
- work PC is totally fine - accesses internet, browses, pings, everything
is peachy
- home PC can ping from the command prompt, but can't browse through IE and
can't access the POP server through Outlook.

I've tried the netsh reset commands that I found in this forum and rebooted,
but it hasn't worked.

Any ideas?


Background/History (for the truly curious):
About 2 nights ago my internet connection on my home PC kept getting slower,
and I figured it must be that kontiki download that seemed to be hogging
resources and been bugging me for a while, so I used the control panel to
remove that, then the "secure delivery" piece that was apparently also part
of the problem (at least according to the google hits I'd found). When I
tried to access my.yahoo.com, it said "web site contacted. waiting for
download" or something to that effect and hung interminably. Oddly enough, I
could get to www.wtopnews.com and www.google.com. I could access live pages
on wtopnews, and could execute google searches, but couldn't click on any of
those links. My request to get new mail from Outlook timed out waiting for
response from the POP server. I spent a fair amount of time on the phone
with Verizon DSL support desk and they checked a lot of internet, modem and
router options and finally said they had no idea what the problem was and
that I should contact Microsoft. At work someone suggested that it might be
DNS that is not working and that I should try plugging in an ip address into
IE. Since I can ping "yahoo.com" and its ip address 216.109.126.22 and .135,
I don't think DNS is the problem, but what do I know (besides the obvious
"enough to be dangerous, but not enough to have a useful clue"). I was able
to download and install SP2, but can't access microsoft.com from the home PC,
so if I need to re-install something else, it'll have to fit on my USB key
because I don't think I can download if i can't get IE working. So, I was
browsing this forum and found the advice for using some netsh commands to
reset the catalog and reinitialize IP, which did have an effect in that now
at least IE recognizes that it's hung trying to get to a site and it gives me
the "cannot find server" screen.

Anyway, I've never tried this type of discussion forum before, but I figured
it's worth a shot and maybe the solution will help someone else who has a
similar type of problem.

Thanks for your help and advice!

 

[Guest]

Try enabling the "secure delivery" again, it may be part of the problem.
Because wi-fi connections need security so that only the owner uses the
connection. I think that it may not have nothing to do with, but just try,
and see what happens.

 

[Carey Holzman]

Try tip #3 at www.careyholzman.com/netfixes.htm

I recommend the WinSockXP.exe file for you... The command prompt 'fix' from
Microsoft is fairly useless in actually repairing the TCP/IP stack.

Carey

 

[Guest]

Well, I tried the WinSockXP file and after doing the fixes, it tried to
reboot my PC, but XP doesn't seem to be able to load at all. All I get is the
blinking cursor at the top left of my screen. I tried powering it off and
back and and I get the same thing.

 

[Guest]

OOPS!!! I take that back user error. When I unplugged my USB key, XP booted
again. My bad!

Still can't get to most sites through IE though. Trillian works for instant
messaging though and I can still ping things, so at least part of the tcpip
stack is working.

 

[Carey Holzman]

Try adjusting the MTU settings. Explained here:

http://www.michna.com/kb/wxnet.htm

Carey