No Internet Connection

Question

I have two PCs connected via Ethernet cable as a home network. For several months these two PCs have been able to communciate with each other and the internet. The Dell 510 (Win XP Pro) acts the server and the Dell 2350 (Win XP Home) is the client. My internet connection a broadband from the server. Several days ago the client started running very slow on bootup and opening any application. On the internet, it was extremely slow.

After determing that my firewall and virus protection had let a Trojan, a worm and several suspect files onto the client, I upgraded my virus protection and tried to remove the viruses. However, the system still ran sluggish and began to be intermittent in communicating with the server. I decided to reload the operating system, but it would not let me reinstall. I then proceeded to reformat the HD and reloaded the OS with no problem. I then checked to make sure the two PCs could communicate. DHCP is not enabled, so the PCs use static IPs. They can communicate, but the client PC can not access the internet. I have set and reset almost every possible setting for the network cards and the internet access options of Firefox. I even disabled the firewall and still can not get through to the internet.

What should I check or try next?

bngntn · Answer

I tried that and it gave me an error saying that 'ipconfig' was not a valid command.

volcano11 · Answer

On the computer you are calling the client, to help troubleshoot this 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.

Steve

volcano11 · Answer

Are you absolultely sure you spelled it correctly?  If so, then your version of Windows is totally messed up.   Steve

volcano11 · Answer

Does anything run from the command prompt Window (try msconfig, services.msc, iexplore)?   Steve

bngntn · Answer

I tried it again on the client PC and it still gives me the error msg.   On the server it gives me a long list of settings.

bngntn · Answer

None of those commands work.  At the command level I typed 'help' and did see a listing of common DOS like commands. Should I try reloading the OS?

bngntn · Answer

OK, I used the Dell resource disk and the Win XP reinstallation disk to load a couple of MS applications and then when I tried the "ipconfig" command, it worked. Here is the info for the IP Configuration and Ethernet LAN:

Windows IP Configuration

        Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : kitchen

        Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

        Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Mixed

        IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

        WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

        Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

        Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller

        Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-08-74-C6-0D-D4

        Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.29

        Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 2002:4bcb:6ed5:4:fc61:9db:9c49:f617

        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 2002:4bcb:6ed5:4:208:74ff:fec6:dd4

        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0::4:208:74ff:fec6:dd4%1

        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : fe80::208:74ff:fec6:dd4%4

        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : fe80::213:72ff:fee2:b9c4%4

        DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1

                                            fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1

                                            fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1

---------------------
What else can I do?

bngntn · Answer

You got me to investigating the combination of setting for IP addresses and such. Since my config showed that DHCP was diabled, I relied on setting the IP addresses for both PCs on the LAN. However, the troubleshooting information for Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) says that the IP addresses should be obtained automatically. If I allowed for automatic IP address on the server, then the LAN did not allow both PCs to communicate. So, I tried a combination of settings and here is what worked:

TCP/IP settings on LAN Properties

-- Server -- set static IP address
-- Client -- obtain IP address automatically
-- obtain DNS automatically

Also, instead of using the default for NetBIOS, I set both PCs to "Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP"

Don't know if this makes sense, but it seemed to work. Both PCs can communicate with each other and the internet.

Thanks for your help!!

volcano11 · Answer

There is a lot of gibberish in that ipconfig output that makes it difficult to determine where the problem lies. Since you are using a static IP address, have you manually set up the Gateway address on this machine.

The standard installation of Windows should have installed all the stuff necessary for the ipconfig command to work. Why didn't these get loaded on the initial install? It make me wonder what other necessary stuff didn't get loaded when you reinsalled Windows.

Steve

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

No Internet Connection

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