Windows XP Networking Dead

Factual Questions
1

Hi,

I just installed Windows XP Professional on an old HP Pavilion (6638) which I upgraded to 512MB ram. This particular computer seems to have a USB issue that makes Windows XP freeze on boot unless the Intel USB driver is disabled. (The bios is at the latest revision). As a result, after installing, I had to go into safe mode and disable the USB controller device(there is no way to disable it in the bios).

While I was diagnosing the problem in Safe Mode with Networking, my internet connection worked fine(just LAN with DHCP through a cable router). I was able to check google for the USB problem and solve it. Then I rebooted into Normal Mode/

It rebooted fine, but it left me logged on as administrator, instead of running the usual multipage initial setup (activation, registration, internet connection). But the networking seems to be dead. There is no error messages, red tickmarks, etc, Windows claims it works fine, but it won’t get DHCP. The little thing shows “0 Packets Sent, 0 Packets Recieved”. I tried doing static IP addressing, but it still won’t send ANY packets.

I got desperate. I rebooted into Safe Mode with Networking again, which worked fine 5 minutes ago. Nada. No network connectivity whatsoever. 0 Packets.

I got even more desperate. I swapped the NIC for a known good one. It got detected, the driver isntalled fine, it “connected” but still 0 packets and no DHCP.

My theory is that since it worked BEFORE the first Normal Mode bootup(in Safe Mode), Windows XP relies on that 7 page welcome screen to setup the networking somehow, and when it was not ran, something broke.

Any ideas on how to fix that?
Thank you very much,

Groman
P.S. Reinstalling won’t help since I’ll have the same USB issue.

2

See Interactive Microsoft Home Network Guide

Also

3

Thanks, but I ran through all the troubleshooters already. It seems that the network access is locked down hard. And I have a gut feeling it’s related to the fact that the “Configure your Networking and Register” step of the setup was skipped due to the USB issue.

If I setup static IP and try pinging, it says ‘host unreachable’ but the counter still says zero packets sent. There’s something preventing any packet exchange.

Any ideas?

Groman

4

Did your XP installation use auto-update to install service pack 2? It has a firewall that may be preventing networking.

I just installed XP this week, and my networking was dead as well. In my case, it turned out to be the free copy of Norton Internet Security that ships with XP. I installed it, and even though I turned off its internet firewall stuff my network was dead. I couldn’t even ping my own local box. Uninstalled Norton, and everything worked fine.

5

I’m going to try installing SP2 maybe it’s a tcp/ip stack issue or something.
The windows XP pro CD is the standard CD, no service pack, no addons.

So far I have no idea.

6

Ok, I installed SP2 and it solved the USB issue, but networking still didn’t work.
So I did an XP repair from the CD, and it solved EXACTLY half of the networking issue. Now I’m sending packets, but recieving 0. So I still can’t get DHCP, or ping.

Any ideas?

I’ll try messing around with netsh/registry or reinstall later tonight.

Thanks