Strange Internet Connectivity Problem

Question

I have an Inspiron 9100 running XP SP2 and I am having a very strange problem with connecting to the Internet whether I am doing it through Wireless or Ethernet.  It is connected through a Wireless Router (D-Link AirPlus Extreme G).  The desktop which is also connected through the router has no problems.   I can send and receive e-mails and connect to my company's FTP site, but whenever I try to go to ANY website in IE I get 'Page could not be displayed'.  I have tried:   1) Uninstalled the Network adapters in Device manager and rebooted 2) Updated the drivers for both wireless and ethernet 3) Re-registered the IE dlls 4) Scanned for and removed Spyware 5) Used sfc /scannow to look ofr corrupt system files   The only thing above that appeared to help was uninstalling and re-installing the devices...but it only worked for a short time and the problem reappeared.   This only happens when I'm connecting through the internal devices, because I have no problems when I use my Verizon Cell phone to connect by their 'Quick2Net' service.    Any ideas for things I have not tried?

Jerry Park · Answer

Have you tried it with a browser other than IE?

Probably an IE setting? Go to the control panel and select the Internet Options icon.
Select the Connections tab.
Press the 'Lan Settings' button.
Insure that the 'Automatically detect settings' box is checked.

karenc · Answer

I did try that...didn't make any difference.   Also Firefox won't work when IE doesn't work...so I don't htink the problem is specific to the browser.

usedcars48 · Answer

I can think of a couple of things for you to try. The first is to make sure that DHCP is enabled. Go to services and check if TCP/IP NETBIOS help is enabled and then also in services got Wireless zero configuration and start it. Not sure if any of these will help but they have helped me a couple of times when I was having problems. Larry

volcano11 · Answer

Try downloading and running lspfix from Here. Steve

Jerry Park · Answer

@karenc wrote:

I did try that...didn't make any difference. Also Firefox won't work when IE doesn't work...so I don't htink the problem is specific to the browser.

Well, I've had problems with IE connecting when Firefox would connect ...

Since your email works and FTP works, your connection is getting the proper gateway address and DNS servers (unless your email and FTP connection is set to the actual numerical address).

Still seems like some setting in IE/Windows.

karenc · Answer

The firewall isn't a problem since I've had it turned off since I started having this problem.   I found and downloaded WinsockXPFix and it seems to have fixed the problem...at least for now.  Thanks for all of your suggestions!

Jerry Park · Answer

Do you have a firewall running which could be blocking the browser?

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Strange Internet Connectivity Problem

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