More Troubleshooting Help

Post by **Sylvus** » January 31, 2007, 10:25 pm

So now my mom has some crazy problem with her laptop that I can't seem to figure out. The laptop has both a wireless and an ethernet adapter. I can connect to a network with either (with or without the other adapter disabled). IP addresses seem to be assigned just fine on either. She can still get her email, or so she claims.

She cannot hit any websites. That's the problem, and it's driving me nuts. I tried ipconfig /flushdns like 15 times, then pinged different domains, some resolved some didn't. Couldn't hit any http:// via IP address even. Even the router (at http://192.168.1.1) wouldn't come up. Verified on another wireless laptop that everything worked fine, including the router's admin interface.

Any ideas on where I should look next?

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » February 1, 2007, 10:29 pm

Check the proxy settings?

Does she have some crap internet security suite blocking direct access to port 80?

Have you tried a different machine on the same router to make sure it's specific to her machine and not an issue with the router?

noel · Post by **noel** » February 1, 2007, 11:42 pm

Also check the routing table for the PC. Longshot, but I recently fixed a relative's PC that had a bogus static route added.

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » February 2, 2007, 9:38 am

Sounds like the old cool wave crap...might wanna grab CWShredder and run it for shits and giggles

OS is XP?

Post by **Sylvus** » February 2, 2007, 11:39 am

Router works with a different computer, yes.

OS is XP, yes.

It appears she only has Norton Antivirus and Windows Firewall installed, I looked for other suites but couldn't find anything.

I'll check out CWShredder, how do you get to the routing table?

noel · Post by **noel** » February 2, 2007, 11:58 am

From a command prompt, type: route print

Not sure how familiar you are with routing tables, but basically you'd look for a static route that said to go somewhere other than her router. A static route in windows will take precedence over the default gateway handed down by a bootp/dhcp server (in your case the router).

The more I read your leading post, the more I'm inclined to think it's something in your browser that's fucked up. If you go to the Internet Properties for IE (Tools -> Internet Options) and go to the connection tab, verify the LAN settings (should be entirely blank) and verify there's not some other weird connection in use. 'never dial a connection' should be the selection.

Ashur · Post by **Ashur** » February 2, 2007, 6:40 pm

PeerGuardian 2 installed?

I'm constantly amazed at how many applications PG2 will block.

Also make sure the firewall isn't blocking port 80.

Ashur · Post by **Ashur** » February 8, 2007, 1:28 pm

Did you ever fix this?

noel · Post by **noel** » February 8, 2007, 2:04 pm

Yeah Sylvus is really bad at letting us know what the issue was.

He's damn good at hooking us though!

Post by **Sylvus** » February 8, 2007, 2:21 pm

Lol, sorry. It was actually a number of issues. She neglected to mention that the problem came about AFTER she took it into Best Buy to have them fix an unrelated problem. I just got it fixed last night.

The original problem was some sort of a conflict with the .NET framework and the drivers/software associated with her HP printer. Was giving her error popups continuously. She took it into Best Buy and the guy "fixed" the issue. Later she noticed she couldn't hit any web pages. Had I known that, I probably would have checked the IE proxy immediately. As it was, I knew that she had no clue how to change that, no reason to, and I automatically assumed it couldn't be that.

It was the proxy settings.

The Best Buy guy didn't remove them after he "fixed" her issue. I'm a dumbass, thank you all for your help.

Incidentally, the original issue came back not long after I removed the proxy. I did a ton of searching on the issue and none of those avenues seemed to help, so I uninstalled the offending program. Hope it isn't necessary for her to print!

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » February 8, 2007, 7:38 pm

It sounds like whatever the hell my girlfriend uses to print as well. pita program that caused trouble connecting to about anything until it was removed. She can still do almost everything without the software as she could with it.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » February 8, 2007, 9:18 pm

Sylvus wrote:Lol, sorry. It was actually a number of issues. She neglected to mention that the problem came about AFTER she took it into Best Buy to have them fix an unrelated problem. I just got it fixed last night.

The original problem was some sort of a conflict with the .NET framework and the drivers/software associated with her HP printer. Was giving her error popups continuously. She took it into Best Buy and the guy "fixed" the issue. Later she noticed she couldn't hit any web pages. Had I known that, I probably would have checked the IE proxy immediately. As it was, I knew that she had no clue how to change that, no reason to, and I automatically assumed it couldn't be that.

It was the proxy settings. The Best Buy guy didn't remove them after he "fixed" her issue. I'm a dumbass, thank you all for your help.

Incidentally, the original issue came back not long after I removed the proxy. I did a ton of searching on the issue and none of those avenues seemed to help, so I uninstalled the offending program. Hope it isn't necessary for her to print!

Dude! That's like... the first thing I said!

Post by **Sylvus** » February 9, 2007, 12:04 pm

Yeah, well when I was reading and responding to this thread I didn't have the computer with me! And I didn't think that could be it, because at the time I didn't realize someone else had handled the computer.

Anyway, problem solved. Thank you guys for all of your help!

(particularly Zaelath for solving the problem quickly and efficiently on his first try!)