little or no connectivity

What are you connecting to, directly to a broadband modem or to a router connected to a broadband modem?  Have you tried resetting the network by powering everything down, waiting 5 minutes, and then powering up the modem before anything else?  Do you have other computers that can successfully connect to this network?

 

Steve

yes i tried powering everything down and nothing. i have a cable router that my girlfriend and i use. i have reset that many times still nothing. my girlfriends compaq works just fine with the cable router. she has no problems connecting to the internet at all. 

honestly i don't know what the cable she uses is called.i know that the coaxial cable hooks up to the comcast router then she has a cable that runs from there to the computer. i have tried different cables with no luck at all.

Steve, as usual, has good suggestions so you will definitely want to check them out, however, as the cable connections themselves aren't necessarily the problem.

 

The fact you don't mention having any kind of router implies you and your girlfriend are both connecting directly to the modem.  In my experience, if one device is connecting to the modem using a USB cable (flat metal connector on the computer end, if not on both ends) then the modem will typically disable the ethernet (8 wire phone-jack looking port) port within anywhere from a few hours to a few days of the USB port being used.

 

The fix is to reset the router (so it forgets the USB connection was being used) and get a router, or at least a switch, and run an ethernet cable from the modem to the router and then connect your computers to the LAN ports on the router.  This is, of course, assuming it is only a problem being caused by how one of the two computers is connecting to the modem.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say your girlfriends computer is connecting the modem using a USB cable ...

i did exactly as you suggested and i still get the same message. i tried to repair the connection and it said cannot renew my ip address. i appreciate the thought.

Try downloading the latest drivers for your ethernet network adapter from the Dell download site and transfer the driver installation file to the problem computer.  Then boot the problem computer into Safe Mode, go into Device Manager and uninstall the ethernet network adapter.   Reboot into Normal mode, cancel the New Hardware Wizard (if it starts), then run the driver installation file to reinstall the ethernet network adapter.  Let us know if that works.

 

Steve

i appreciate the thought but she just looked and we are connected to the router using a ethernet cable not a usb.  i am computer illiterate so any help you guys give me is really appreciated.

So, you have a coax cable from the wall to that router, then your two computers plug into the router?  I wonder if it is configured to only accept connections from one system ...

the router only accepts one ethernet cord at a time. we switch off. larry why won't my network connection let me renew my ip address when i try to repair it?

When you turn it off before changing connections, do you leave it off for at least 5 minutes?

 

Steve

no i never tried that. i will and let you know. thank you

steve i tried to unplug my router like you suggested and it sorta worked. it says i am connected but now it won't load any ie pages at all. any suggestions?

 thanks john

After you get a connection to modem, do the following:

 

On the computer with the problem, go to Start > Run and type cmd then click OK. In the command prompt window that opens, type ipconfig /all then hit the enter key. Write down the output from this command or select it and save it to a txt file, then copy this output into a reply to this message.  Perhaps this will give us some information about where the problem is.

 

Steve

ok will do. i'll let you know. thanks, john