Internet connection stopped working...

Factual Questions
1

My network has a linksys wireless router, one PC (Vista) and one laptop (XP). The laptop is connected to the internet wirelessly and the PC through a wire.

The PC stopped working yesterday, the laptop still works. That means the router works, the ISP works, and there must be something wrong with the PC.

I know my settings are correct because they worked two days ago and I haven’t changed them. I tried resetting the router and modem. I don’t have any firewalls running.

System restore failed to work several times. I’m about to reinstall windows, but I thought I would check here to see if there is something else I could try.

2

Replace the Ethernet cable(s). More than once I’ve been burned by a cable that seemingly ‘went bad’ for no apparent reason.

It was rather embarrassing the evening I spent 45 minutes on the phone with my ISP’s Tech Support trying to diagnose a similar problem, more than once dismissing my wife’s suggestion that “maybe it’s just a bad cable”, only to discover that apparently when I moved my router six inches while cleaning earlier in the day it was just enough to break one of the wires…

3

What Suburban said. You should check the cable first. Unplug it and windows will pop a message that a cable was unplugged. If the message doesnt pop then something is wrong. Try with another cable. If the problem persists check the lights on the router and behind the pc where the cable plugs. If the lights are dead then either the network adapter is dead or the wired part of the router is dead. (I have seen both happen)

Good luck!

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

4

As above, check the cable if you have a spare. Otherwise, what information do you get when you enter ‘ipconfig’ at a command prompt on the desktop?

5

I connected the wire that goes from the modem to the router, directly to the PC and that didn’t work. The lights work on both the PC and the router.

Here is what ipconfig shows me:

C:\Users\User>ipconfig

Windows IP Configuration
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.105
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

C:\Users\User>ipconfig/all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Big-PC
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NVIDIA nForce 10/100 Mbps Ethernet
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1B-FC-FC-1D-B2
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.105(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 167.206.3.141
167.206.3.140
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

6

How odd. Looks like your network on the PC side is just fine. If the network card or cable were bad, it would be unlikely that you would have an IP address assigned from the router.

Anyway, eliminate some variables…

Plug your PC directly into the Internet connection of your cable modem and do a “release/renew”. This will tell you if the PC network card and cable are behaving as advertised. Hopefully you can go online (briefly! You don’t have the NAT firewall protection here)

Plug your PC into different ports on the router. A typical router consists of three pieces: a NAT firewall, a network switch, and a wireless access point. In your case, the switch may be failing.

See if you can ping the laptop from the PC.

7

That’s a manual IP address that I put in.

Here’s what it looks like when PC is set to find an IP address automatically:

C:\Users\User>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Big-PC
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NVIDIA nForce 10/100 Mbps Ethernet
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1B-FC-FC-1D-B2
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.9.201(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Both of those options didn’t work.

When I switched the setting to find the IP address automatically, the PC shows that it’s “identifying the network”. It just stays on that setting and doesn’t get anywhere.

Also, whenever I switch the IP settings, the window tends to freeze. The window also freezes with I try to disable and enable the LAN connection. Could that mean a bad network card? Device manager shows that the card is working. Is there another way to check the card?

8

I can’t ping my laptop from my PC. But the PC can ping itself with a manual IP address.

9

It pretty much has to be a bad card, as you say, or Windows is completely borked. If you can borrow another machine and plug it into the same cable you can confirm all this though.

10

Yes… you got a 169 IP address, so you’re getting nowhere fast.

I’d keep looking at the hardware angle, trying different combinations of cables and such to eliminate problems. Check your device manager to see if the network card has a driver issue.

As a final test to see if it is truly a hardware issue, why not pop in one of the many Linux LiveCD releases such as Knoppix? You would be booting into a Linux distro, completely bypassing your hard drive and your software configuration. If you can open Firefox from Linux and browse the web, then it is most likely a configuration issue in Vista.

11

So there I was, Windows CD in hand, all my files backed up, drawing up contingency plans on how my family would survive with only one computer with an internet connection, when I decided to check the cables one more time.

I exchanged the cable running from the modem to the router with the cable running from the PC to the router. Everything works now. :smack:

I don’t know why the connection didn’t work when I ran a cable from the modem to my PC. For some reason the bad cable can handle the signal from the modem to the router, but not from the router to the PC. I’m going to replace it anyway just to make sure it doesn’t fail again.

Thanks to everyone that replied to the thread. I’m going to put all the Windows and driver installation CDs back in the basement, hopefully never to be used again.

12

My experience has been with a satellite modem, but FWIW:
The modem and router have to be power cycled. Apparently the modem will only talk to the last thing it saw. Cycling power to both of them causes the modem to find the router.