Unable to access the internet

terence101,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

Try going to the IP address of a site.  Go to http://143.166.83.230/, this is the IP address for the Dell home page. If this works, then your computer does not see the DNS server for your ISP. Go into the Device Manager and look for any yellow exclamation marks or red X's. You should also reload the network drivers by using the Drivers CD that was included with your system.

I tried to access the ip address of the site but could not do so. The message that appears on the screen was 'could not open search page'. I also checked the device manager under network adapters including the hidden devices, I could not find any yellow exclamation or red crosses. I tried the reloading fo drivers as well, but windows said that there were no better drivers to be installed.

terence101,

The results you described tell me that there is not a hardware issue with the network card.  Because you receive data when you ping a site, the issue is not with hardware.  I would recommend setting the default settings on your browser.  You may  want to contact your ISP for further software configuration tips. 

As i have several laptops around the house, i checked their ip address and all of them have the correct ip address. Mine however, is different from the rest. I tried fixing the ip address to their ip address but had the same problem as well. The automatic ip address detected is always the same as before but different from the rest.

How are the rest of the laptops receiving IP addresses? Is your connection to the Internet via a router? What IP address does the Inspiron 8100 receive? If the address begins with 169.254, the address is being automatically assigned by the machine itself, because it cannot reach a DHCP server to obtain an address. What are the IP addresses of the other laptops? How do the other laptops receive their IP addresses?

You said, "I even ping the ip address and there was no lost packets.". What IP address were you pinging?

With some more detail about your network setup, it should be possible to figure out what's happening. I agree with BobT that there doesn't appear to be a hardware issue.

Jim

I know it is definitely not a hardware issue. The Linksys support also said so. Which is why i do not know what to do now.

As for jimw's questions, yes, the internet connection is via the broadband router. The other laptops receive the ip addresses automatically, ie DCHP enabled. Yes, my ip address starts with a 169.254.... The other ip addresses on the other laptops start 192.168... The address i was pinging was the 169.254 address. Anything other details u guys need to know about my network setup, pls let me know. I will try to give as much details as possible. I definitelhy agree with u that it is not a hardware problem.

Thanks

The 169.254... IP address means that, in spite of the link light on the card, you don't have a working Ethernet connection between the card and the router. The PCMPC200 may not be autonegotiating the connection speed (10 or 100 mbps) or duplex setting (half or full) correctly with the router.

I didn't see anything in the PCMPC200 user manual that explains how to disable automatic speed and duplex negotiation, so you'll have to do some hunting in the card's configuration utility to find out how to do this. The idea is to lock the PCMPC200's speed to 10 mb/sec, half duplex, and see if that works. What speeds are available depends on which broadband router you have. What is the broadband router's manufacturer name and model number?

Two more possibilities are a defective CAT5 cable or a defective connector on the router. Try moving the cable that goes to the 8100 to a different connector on the router. If that doesn't change the symptom, try replacing the cable.

By the way, was the problem you were having with the Intel 8255x adapter the same as the problem you're having with the Linksys PCMPC200? How did you decide that the 8255x was defective?

Jim

The Actiontec 8255x Ethernet Adapter has autonegotiation problems with the Dell-Actiontec supplied drivers.  Use the link below in my sig to get the latest and working driver.

I have tried every speed available with the network card, from 10 Mbps half duplex to 100 Mbps full duplex. Every setting did not fix the problem. I was still unable to access to the internet. The manufacturer's name of the router is ST Labs Broadband router, i do not think there is a model name cos they only have 1 model of a broadband router.

To check with the defective cables, i tried using another cable connected to the other laptops, each one of them and yet no results. Tried to move my cable to another connector as well, still nothing.

As for the earlier network problem, it was not the same. I did post that problem here earlier, some time in sept. The problem was that the intel network card was unable to autonegotiate with the router. I tried every possible solution suggested by johnallg, who has kindly helped me all the way. At that time, the network card was still working as the LED lights were blinking. And then one day, my broadband service provider had some network problems and everyone in the house was unable to access the internet. When the problem was fixed, the other laptops in the house had their connection back but i did not get back my connection at all. It was worse as the LED lights did not even light up, meaning the network adapter was not even detecting the router. This was when i decided that the hardware could be faulty. This was why i decided to take another network card to try out, at least it is detecting the router but not being able to access to the internet.

I didn't find a manual for the router, but I did find a description. The model I found is an IPR-4P-EUR-1. It looks like four clients can be directly connected to the router. There's an "uplink" port if more are needed.

The manual would have helped, because one possibility is that the DHCP server in the router is configured to hand out a *very small* number of IP addresses. That might explain why the other machines receive IP addresses and the 8100 doesn't.

From one of the working machines, take a look at the router's DHCP server setup and client list. Is the range of client addresses restricted to one less than you need? Are there any MAC address based restrictions in place in the DHCP server?

I'm puzzled by the way the 8255x failed after your broadband provider had network problems. Did you make any changes to the 8100's network configuration while you were troubleshooting the outage? Nothing on the WAN side of the router should have been capable of disabling that 8255x.

(edit) Just to make sure I haven't missed something...In your first note in this thread, you said, "I even ping the ip address and there was no lost packets". The IP address that you were pinging was the automatically assigned (169.254...) address of the Linksys card, and you were pinging that address from the 8100 where the Linksys card's installed...right?

Jim

Message Edited by jimw on 10-30-2003 02:22 PM

I checked the lan settings and i see no reason why there should be a small number of ip addresses fixed, as the ip pool address is at its maximum, ie between 2 to 254. I also checked the status of the router, and i saw only 3 connected clients at that time, with my computer on of cos. Looking at the dchp client list, obviously i see only 3 of them with their ip addresses and mac addresses. There was no restrictions as well, i m pretty sure of this bcos i m the only one in the house who knows that the router setup exists. So far, i m the only one who knows about the router setup and how to restricts mac addresses. Besides, i only know the password to access the router setup.

One thing which i saw different today was that when i opened the network connections and clicked on the relevant network adapter, i saw on the details section on the left hand side bar, after the ip address and subnet mask, the last line showing 'assigned by DHCP'. In my computer, it shows 'automatic private address'. This was the only difference which i saw besides the differences in figures of ip address and the subnet mask. I did not change any settings to the TCP/IP protocol. Everything is set to automatic. Just to let u know, in case it could be useful.

About the original adapter, i m as puzzled as u r, in fact i was quite frustrated at that time as i needed the internet to finish up my project which was due. I can assure u that no settings have been changed, nothing disabled or anything. At that time of the network problem, i went thru the technical assistance with my service provider. All we did was to check the ip addresses and everything. Just to let u know, what we did was we connected one computer, ie mine directly to the cable modem provided by them (the service provider only provided the cable modem and the rest was set up by me). We wanted to make sure that the router was not part of the problem. I was able to access the internet when directly connected to the cable modem. In fact, i m pretty sure that the ip address at that time is the same as the ip address i have now. (Before this, I have also tried to connect my computer directly to the cable modem using the Linksys card but still no results) I was only when i connected the computer back to the router that my original adapter problem started. It has not been disabled or anything.

About the ip address that i was pinging, i was pinging using the Linksys card from my 8100. It is not possible using the original adapter bcos i tried that as well, and after typing ipconfig, the message came out: media disconnected. At this point, the original adapter was not disabled at all.

We need to figure out a way to localize this problem.

Here's what I think we know:

1. 
   
2. The internal adapter doesn't function at all. How and why it stopped functioning is not known.
3. 
   
4. The Linksys PCMCIA adapter appears to connect to the router, but does not receive an IP address from it.
5. 
   
6. The router is not configured to restrict the number of DHCP clients.
7. 
   
8. If the Linksys is connected directly to the cable modem, it does not receive an IP address from the ISP.
9. 
   

Depending on how the ISP registers connected devices, the Linksys card might not receive an IP address unless the cable modem is reset, because the MAC address of the Linksys isn't the one registered with the ISP.

The "automatic private address" in the details section just confirms the fact that the adapter isn't receiving an IP address via DHCP.

Is the XP firewall disabled? If it isn't, try disabling it for the Linksys card.

This is a pain, but if you install the Linksys in one of the other laptops, does it function correctly?

If it does, that pretty much points at *something* in the 8100 setup. Try resetting the IP stack with the command, "netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt".

Jim

Message Edited by jimw on 10-31-2003 05:42 PM

Ok, here is what i did:

First, i turned off all computers in the house to reset the cable modem and the router as well. After that, turned on my computer and still the same problem.

Second, checked for the firewall on the Linksys card. Under its properties, the box for firewall was not ticked. Therefore, i think the firewall was never enabled.

Thirdly, I tried to install the Linksys on another computer, it worked out very fine. No complications at all, though when i opened the IE first time, the page could not be displayed. Tried again the second time, and everything was all rite. Checked its properties as well, the ip address is the proper ip address.

So i guess it is down to 'something' in the system, which i m going to need some help in doing it. Can u tell me how to reset the ip stack? Thanks

terence

So i guess it is down to 'something' in the system, which i m going to need some help in doing it. Can u tell me how to reset the ip stack?

This is the magic incantation:

netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt

Here's a  short article describing that use of netsh, found with a Google search for netsh int ip reset.

I certainly hope that works. Unless someone spots a flaw in the troubleshooting, the next step after that would be a "clean reinstall" of XP.

Jim

uh...just one problem

where do i type that magic incantation?

Oops, sorry! I should have included that information. Open a "command window" with "Start/Run cmd.exe". Then type the "netsh" incantation inside the command window.

Here's Microsoft's article on using netsh to reset TCP/IP on WinXP. The article includes a sample of the log file that's produced. After performing the reset, you should review the log file for errors. Post back if you find anything unusual-looking.

Jim