I can ping, but I can't get anywhere ...

[AluminumStudios]

One of my users' home PC has a problem.

She has a PPPoE connection set up in Windows XP to connect to their DSL (Verizon.) She can connect to Verizon OK but nothing network related works.

I have her machine in my office. I connected the Ethernet and gave it an IP address (we use static IPs in my office) and even though I wasn't using the PPPoE connection I experienced the exact same issue.

From the command prompt I can ping IP addresses and get a response, however if I do an NSlookup it tells me it can't get to the name server (and list's the IPs which I entered for the DNS servers.) Web browsers (IE and Mozilla) just give a generic DNS error if I try to go to a site. I even tried entering the IP address for a web server that I run in a web browser and it wouldn't work ... so it's not purely a DNS problem.

The system is a typical home computer with tons of software on it, however Microsoft Antispyware (which I've come to like) didn't detect any spyware. It has some kind of cyberhome software to protect kids from pr0n and ZoneAlarm. I tried disabling them as well as going into Safe Mode with networking where none of this software loaded, but the machine still had the exact same symptoms.

The system had openAFS on it (the owner is a bioinformatics faculty member.) She didn't use it anymore so I un-installed it. Currently the machine's network configuration is very normal. I can't figure out why I can ping thigs but nothing more ...

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[KGB]

What OS is it running?
Try dumping the TCP/IP stack and let it reinstall it after rebooting.
If it's XP, try uninstalling the NIC and let it reinstall it after reboot.

 

[AluminumStudios]

I should have been more specific in the info ...

It is Windows XP with SP1 runnong on a Dell Dimension 8300.

I haven't tried dumping the NIC yet .. I'll try that next.

 

[avey]

There isnt any way to truly uninstall and reinstall TCP/IP in XP. There is however a way to reset it to defaults.

Checkout this MS KB article on how to do it.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=299357

You may also want to checkout this article if the reset dosn't help. This talks about recovering from winsox2 coruption.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811259

I would also run a full spyware and antivirus scan to make sure that isnt part of the problem. lately I've been seeing a number of spyware infections that also caused networking issues. I had to get the spyware cleaned off first before I could get the networking working again.

 

[Raj]

I came across that a few times. If all else fails try this. if you try to uninstall internet explorer through the add/remove programs utility in control panel, it will give you three options: they are uninstall, repair and something else (can't remember). choose repair, and it goes through and reinstalls IE. that might work.

Also try installing another browser like mozilla, and see if that works.

if another browser works, and IE doesn't. you know that the problem is with IE.
good luck.

 

[AluminumStudios]

re Raj: The problem wasn't just IE, it happened with every network app.

re avey: Thanks for the advice but no dice. After trying everything including uninstalling and re-installing the network card and resetting TCP/IP the problem just wouldn't go away. After so long I gave up and returned the machine back to the user with the recommendation of reloading the thing. Who knows what she or her kids did to it ... I tried everything under the sun checked for spyware, viruses, removed network related software, etc., etc.) The problem was so deep in Windows that it even manifested when I created a dial-up connection as opposed to trying to use the Ethernet ....

 

[Slikkster]

Try the LSP Winsock Repair Utility (freeware):

http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm

Run the System File Checker: Start -- Run -- type in "sfc /scannow" (no quotes).


Also, what about System Restore? It's built right into XP. Set it back to a time before the problem arose.