TCP/IP getting clobbered on XP

[Dr. Chrome]

I was trying to help a friend get his computer working on the Internet
last night. It had previously been working for months and the family
never turned off the computer. Then they turned it off and it wouldn't
work after that. I verified that the DSL modem was working with
another computer. On the network connections screen this interface
would always show as "Enabled" instead of "Connected". It appeared to
be getting an IP address from DHCP of the DSL modem, but I couldn't
even ping the modem. Whenever I would try to ping any address, the IP
address listed would be a bunch of non-ASCII, garbage characters.

I'm guessing this was some sort of a virus that was sitting dormant
waiting for a re-boot. Either that or some sort of Internet security
cyphering gone astray. Has anyone out there seen anything like this
before? Can you give me advice on resolving this?

 

[Kurt]

Absolutely. Don't remember what it was, but try all the anti-spyware and
anti-virus stuff, hijack this, and winsock fixer. If that doesn't do it,
you might be looking at a re-install. Sometimes when multiple infections
take over a computer it's the easiest way to get things back to normal. Make
sure they have up-to-date anti-virus/spyware and all the latest security
patches and service packs.

....kurt