Help! Fresh XP SP2 Pro Build can't access hotmail?

[teldzc1]

I'm having a really frustrating problem. I've built a few machines using an XP Pro SP2 disc. After completing the build I'm unable to access certain websites: hotmail, microsoft, msn, my.yahoo.com, espn, ebay. However, most other sites can be accessed.

I've used different machines on the DSL line and can access all of those websites. I've tried the machines that I've built on my home DSL line and I can access all of the websites. It appears to be the combination of this SP2 disc and this DSL line. However, there is one machine that I've built with the SP2 disc that is able to access all websites from the line.

Incidentally I've taken the machines home and run all of the latest MS updates to make sure it wasn't a patch issue.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

[Slowlearner]

Do you have a firewall such as Zone Alarm installed. If so it may need to be configured properly. Also check your hosts file - windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts without a suffix.

 

[Winchester]

Tools -> Internet Options-> Security -> Trusted Sites maybe?

 

[teldzc1]

Thanks for the replies. I went through every internet and network setting I could think of and nothing worked. I checked Hosts files, http.sys everything. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Even more frustrating was the fact that at home I could connect to all of the sites, its just my GF's DSL line that didn't work.

I talked to a network engineer at work and he figured out the issue. Apparently the MTU size was set too large for the DSL line at my GF's house. DSL standard uses a 1480 MTU size while the default is in the 1500's. After adjusting the MTU size to 1300 (using Cisco MTU utility within Cisco VPN 4.0) I was able to get out.

I thought I knew, but this was beyond me.

 

[Slowlearner]

Izzatso. Then you very definitely need to go www.dslreports.com - tools and tests - and run a tcp/IP test and use their DrTCP utility to fine tune your MTU and other settings.