Bizarre networking issue on laptop

[dallasstar]

A while ago, my laptop's wifi stopped working. It would connect to the wifi router, but it would detect no internet. However, every other device I own would work perfectly, such as my iPad and iPhone. They had blazing fast perfect internet.

I wondered if there were any configuration issues, so I googled the issue, and I went through the whole set of suggested commands to reset my IP address, etc, to no avail.

I started to get frustrated, so I tried connecting directly to my cable modem. Useless.

I should add, however, that after 10 minutes of being useless, both my wired and wireless cards eventually start working each time I have issues. However, even when they do start to work, they remain intermittent with huge latencies. I suspected the DNS server was the issue, so I typed in OpenDNS as my preferred and backup DNS via the network settings in Windows 7. No difference.

I even bought a new USB wifi adapter to see if that would fix it. SAME ISSUES. OMG!!!

Does anyone know what could be going wrong with my laptop? This laptop has been very good to me, and everything aside from the wifi works great. I'd love to just be able to swap out a part (or switch around some settings) and be done with it. It would sadden me if the only solution is to replace the whole laptop.

Any clues? Thanks so much for your help! 🙂

 

[dealguru]

Since your other wireless devices are working fine, it's really the laptop.
This requires some really serious troubleshooting, if you can bring it to an
expert, that would be faster rather than doing a trial an error. You have mentioned
that even wiring to the modem does not help? Could it be the browser? Did you trying
pinging any website while connected wirelessly to your router? You might want to use different browsers as well to further isolate the problem.

 

[dallasstar]

I actually did try switching browsers. It made no difference. I've uninstalled and reinstalled all network adapters, upgraded drivers, everything.

I would normally think that some connection in the laptop is loose. I want to open it up and fix that. However, what is bothering me is that even an external USB wireless adapter didn't fix the problem, so it seems the problem might actually not be the on-board network adapters.

I wonder if there is some common connection that all of these USB and on-board network components must go through to function correctly (unless the entire motherboard isn't working, in which case I'm screwed).

I'd take it to an expert, but the computer is a few years old, and it likely wouldn't justify the cost. I might ask a friend, but I'm usually the friend being asked the questions, so I'm not sure who I'd even ask.

The one thing I haven't tried, though, is reinstalling the OS. I am not sure I want to go that far....

Thanks for your help!

 

[JackMDS]

Many Wireless cards' drivers also install the vendor's Wireless utility.
Make sure that if there is a vendor's Wireless Utility thes Not Running together with the Windows native Wireless utility (WLAN Service) .
----------------
Software Firewall might block the Local traffic to the Network that you are trying to use because it is Not adjusted to the Network Trust Zone.

Make sure that No Firewall is preventing/blocking the Wireless components to get to the Network.

Some 3rd party Software Firewalls keep blocking aspects of Local Traffic even it they are turned Off (disabled).If possible configure the Firewall correctly, otherwise totally uninstall it, and get rid of its residual processes to allow clean flow of local network traffic.
If the 3rd party software is uninstalled or disables, make sure that Windows native Firewall is On .
3rd party Network mangers like Bonjour, and NetMagic can block local traffic too.
---------------------------
Working TCP/IP stack (Network IP number) should look this way.

Right click on the Wire card Network Connection, choose Status, Details, and see if it got an IP and the rest of the settings.

http://www.ezlan.net/Win7/status-nic.jpg

Description is the card manufacturing data.
Physical address is the card's MAC number.
The xx should be a number from 0 to 255 (all xx same number).
yy should be from 0 to 255
zz should be from 0 to 255 (all zz the same number.
The lease date should be valid to the current time.

*Note 1. IP that starts with 169.xxx.xxx.xxx is not valid functional IP.

*Note 2. There might be an IPv6 entries too. However, they are not functional for Internet traffic or LAN. They are needed for Win 7 special HomeGroup configuration.


😎

 

[dallasstar]

Yup, I checked all that. All looks good, and there weren't any clues of what could be wrong. I've decided I'm gonna have to disassemble the laptop. Wish me luck 🙂.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Test it with a Linux live distro, like Ubuntu. If it works ok in Linux, then it's a Windows issue.

Also, does the laptop have a switch on the body somewhere that will disable/enable wireless? I've seen those cause problems too...

 

[iamgenius]

It must be your settings/configuration. Check your internet options. You can try to set everything to default values. Also, tell us what happens when you ping yahoo.com for example.