Lost internet access, DSL modem

I recently removed several program that I was not using. I have Windows 2000 Pro. After finishing, my computer will not talk to my modem. I have a three computer LAN using a Linksys router. The network still works, I can talk to the other two computers. I can ping the router and the modem. When I checked the domain status using Browstat, Browsing was not active on any of the transport \Device associated with either WAN in or out. Browsing was active on the transport\Device (NetBT_Tcpip) This computer is designated the master browser and still seems to be. How can I force or resetablish access to the modem (WAN)?:

 

Errr - what programs did you remove?

And is only the one PC affected or did all of them lose connection to the internet?

What error/failure notice do you get when you try to ping a server outside your network - the ISPs mail server or similar?

 

I removed several programs that I did not use. One was a file sharing program. The two other computers on the LAN can reach the web. I am using one of them now. They are both Win 98SE machines. When I tried pinging into the web on the 2000 machine, the program showed nothing. As I said, Browstat seems to show that the 2000 machine is not active with the transport devices associated with the WAN in or out. One Browstat report says that the browser on the 2000 machine is "bound" to the transport devices in question. But browsing is active only on the LAN ones. I know more than I understand! I am reluctant to make changes in the registry without good knowledge of the effect of the change. But browsing with the WAN devices seems to have been deactivated somewhere?

 

Clarke - couple of thoughts here and maybe some more stuff for you to post

- when I remove a program or two and all of a sudden something I would have thought unrelated quits working, I gotta suspect the program removals caused the problem somehow. And if you can say exactly which apps, we can either answer if any have seen the problem before or do some serious research to see if it is mentioned on the net anywhere.

- sorry, I had missed your mention of your domain when I first read your post. Classic NT4 or 2K AD? And what about the server acting as your DC? 2K pro and 9x certainly can't be doing it.

- you said a ping attempt outside your router produced nothing. Not possible. Either a failure to find the app, ping timing out, ping being rejected, something must have happened. Knowing exactly what might help. Might not but no way to tell without hearing your specific result.

- regardless of if you are on a domain or a small peer LAN, you probably don't need browser service running on your 2K PC. Domain will have plenty of domain master browsers active and a small peer lan shouldn't need any browsing done. No effect at all on the internet. NetBT just isn't used out there at all. DNS only and it doesn't use NTB.

Last thing, please post the results of ipconfig /all from the 2K machine and winipcfg /w detail from a 9x PC that is working. All the results without masking any of them.

 

Newt

I away on a trip,away from the 2000 machine. I'll get back to you this weekend. Regarding pinging past my modem, I see a box come up, nothing happens and then the box goes away. If I ping the Router or the modem address, I get the box, 4 pings and the report. The other two (Win 98SE) machines can get to the web as usual. All three can talk to each other and exchange data!

 

Newt
I ran winipcfg on the Toshiba I am using now. The Results are:
Host Name: LAPTOP dsl.verision.net
DNS Servers: 4.2.2.4
Node Type: Broadcast
Net Bios ID: blank
IP Router Enable: blank
NetBios Resolution uses DNS: blank
WINS enabled: blank
Ethernet Adaptor Info
FE575 Ethernet adaptor
Adaptor Address: 00-04-76-2D-1F-4D
IP Address: 192.168.1.4
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server: 192.168.1.1
Prin WINS: blank
SEC WINS: blank
Lease: today & tomorrow
Running ipconfig on the 2000 machine gives:
Host Name: Base Computer
PrimaryDNS suffix: blank
Node type: Broadcast
IP Routing Enabled: blank
WINS Proxy Enabled: blank
DNS Suffix Search List: dsl.verizon.net
Ethernet adaptor Local Area Connection
Connection specific DNS Suffix: dsl.verizon.net
Description: 3Com Etherlink etc.
Physical Address: 00-01-02-61-6B-6F
IP Address: 192.168.1.2
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server: 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers: 4.2.2.4
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
Lease Optained: today
Lease expired: tomorrow

I went into the Administrative tools to the event log. Every day( it seems) I get a error entry as follows:
The IP address 192.168.1.2 for the Network Card with network address 0001026106F has been denied by the DHCP server 192.168.1.1 (The DHCP Cerver sent a DHCPNACK message)
I use a Linksys BERSR41 router. Looking into the Linksys setup screens I see that the Basecomputer has a MAC address of 000102610B6F in the DHCP Active IP table. All three computer are shown in the table. MAC address??
Does this help?

 

I have some more data that I do not understand. I tried pinging from the CMD prompt. If I ping an address by name( ie www.uci.edu) I get an unknown host message. If I ping the same location by the 10 digit address code ( in this case 128.200.222.219) I get 4 responses and the report. I tried this several times with other sites with the same results. I got the numerical addresses by using my laptop to ping the web using site names. Now, for an experiment, I tried accessing the web using my Windows 2000 machine ( with the problem) with numerical addresses and got thru in each case.I still cannot access any site using the word address such as www.uci.edu and cannot get my E-mail.
Does this make sense to anyone?? I did reinstall my 3Com nic card with no change. I still can talk to the other 2 computers on my network and both of them can reach the web and get E-mail.

 

Hi Clark.

The behavior you describe in the last post where you can ping by address but not by name indicates a DNS problem.

With any network, there has to be a means to turn a name (people like those) into a numeric IP address (computers like those). The method used on the internet is DNS.

Evidently you have a DNS issue with the one machine but not with your others. Assuming the PC that you are having trouble with is running W2K (since you posted in this section) please do the following:

- On the problem machine, start~run~ipconfig /flushdns and see if that helps. If not

- On both the problem machine and another running NT (NT4/2K/XP) do the following and post the results here - clearly identifying the good PC and the bad PC with it's results

start~run~cmd and then
ipconfig /all > c:\goodpc.txt (on one that is working)
ipconfig /all > c:\badpc.txt (on the one that isn't)

That will send all the information to text files and you can just copy/paste the contents here.

Additional question - are you using Domains (with a W2K server as domain controller)? It will make a difference.

 

I tried flushdns with no change on the win2k machine. I got a flush successful response. Here are the ipconfig results for the 2k machine and the 98 laptop I am using to do this.!!! Well I have the results, but can't seem to figure out how to paste them into this message. They are not much different from the ones I pasted previously. But I will send them after some advice on pasting here. I am using a simple Workgroup with 3 machines in it. Two use Win 98 and my machine ( the problem) uses 2000 pro.

 

The 2K results are simple. Pipe the thing to a text file (see above), open the text file, select all the text, copy it and then open a reply and paste it there.

The others will only give the GUI results I think and since this forum will not accept pictures, you are pretty well stuck with writing them down and then putting them here.

And it really would help to have specifics from the actual problem system and another working system while it is working. A very small error could be causing this problem. At least a look at the config data will either show the problem or rule out the config as a possibility. Since it would be by far the easiest to fix, I'd say it's the best place to start.

 

Newt

Windows 2000 IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : BaseComputer
Primary DNS Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast

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

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

DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : dsl.verizon.net

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : dsl.verizon.net
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : 3Com EtherLink 10/100 PCI TX NIC (3C905B-TX)
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-01-02-61-0B-6F

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.2

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

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 4.2.2.4
4.2.2.2
4.2.2.3
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Friday, February 28, 2003 7:19:39 AM

Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, March 01, 2003 7:19:39 AM



Windows 98 IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . : LAPTOP.Workgroup

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . : 4.2.2.4

4.2.2.2

4.2.2.3

Node Type . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast

NetBIOS Scope ID. . . . . . :

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . : No

NetBIOS Resolution Uses DNS : No



0 Ethernet adapter :



Description . . . . . . . . : PPP Adapter.

Physical Address. . . . . . : 44-45-53-54-00-00

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . :

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255

Primary WINS Server . . . . :

Secondary WINS Server . . . :

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . :

Lease Expires . . . . . . . :



1 Ethernet adapter :



Description . . . . . . . . : FE575 Ethernet Adapter

Physical Address. . . . . . : 00-04-76-2D-1F-4D

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.4

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

Default Gateway . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

Primary WINS Server . . . . :

Secondary WINS Server . . . :

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . : 02 28 03 7:16:22 AM

Lease Expires . . . . . . . : 03 01 03 7:16:22 AM

S y s te m I n f o r m a t i o n r e p o r t w r i t t e n a t : 0 2 / 2 8 / 2 0 0 3 0 3 : 1 5 : 2 8 P M
[ S y s t e m S u m m a r y ]

I t e m V a l u e
O S N a m e M i c r o s o f t W i n d o w s 2 0 0 0 P r o f e s s i o n a l
V e r s i o n 5 . 0 . 2 1 9 5 S e r v i c e P a c k 3 B u i l d 2 1 9 5
O S M a n u f a c t u r e r M i c r o s o f t C o r p o r a t i o n
S y s t e m N a m e B A S E C O M P U T E R
S y s t e m M a n u f a c t u r e r V I A T e c h n o l o g i e s , I n c .
S y s t e m M o d e l V T 8 2 C 6 9 3 B X
S y s t e m T y p e X 8 6 - b a s e d P C
P r o c e s s o r x 8 6 F a m i l y 6 M o d e l 8 S t e p p i n g 3 G e n u i n e I n t e l ~ 5 9 8 M h z
B I O S V e r s i o n A w a r d M o d u l a r B I O S v 4 . 5 1 P G
W i n d o w s D i r e c t o r y C : \ W I N N T
S y s t e m D i r e c t o r y C : \ W I N N T \ S y s t e m 3 2
B o o t D e v i c e \ D e v i c e \ H a r d d i s k 0 \ P a r t i t i o n 1
L o c a l e U n i t e d S t a t e s
U s e r N a m e B A S E C O M P U T E R \ C l a r k e
T i m e Z o n e P a c i f i c S t a n d a r d T i m e
T o t a l P h y s i c a l M e m o r y 2 6 1 , 6 1 6 K B
A v a i l a b l e P h y s i c a l M e m o r y 1 2 4 , 5 4 8 K B
T o t a l V i r t u a l M e m o r y 8 9 2 , 1 6 0 K B
A v a i l a b l e V i r t u a l M e m o r y 5 4 7 , 1 7 2 K B
P a g e F i l e S p a c e 6 3 0 , 5 4 4 K B
P a g e F i l e F : \ p a g e f i l e . s y s

What configuration information did you want? The above? Both of the working machines are win 98, desktop(wife) and laptop( that I travel with and use here on the network.

 

Your symptoms are similar to a broken winsock. See LSP-Fix

 

Unixfan - based on his earlier statement that he can reach web/internet sites by address but not by name would make me think DNS issues of some sort rather than a buggy LSP. If I'm missing something here, please bring me up to speed though since I'm not at all familiar with LSP other than a couple of brief summaries.

Clarke - unfortunately, that information all looks good. Next thing to try - you should have a file named hosts (no extension) located in c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc and since it is the first place your PC will look to translate a url to it's ip address, it could be causing problems if it contains errors. It does speed things up sometimes but isn't essential for the way you are set up. So try renaming it to hosts.old and see if things get better.

If not, post back and we'll move to plan C (or D or whatever).

 

Thanks for the continued help.
I looked the LSP issue and didn't find a problem. I then renamed the hosts file to old and rebooted. There was no change in the internet problem. I have pasted the contents of the new "Hosts" file that was created in the reboot as follows:

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.

#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.

#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
For example:

102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
#
38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host


127.0.0.1 localhost
216.177.73.139 auto.search.msn.com
216.177.73.139 search.netscape.com
216.177.73.139 ieautosearch

I don't understand what I see here, hopefully it will meaningful to you. As those two Bartells and James folks would say " Thanks for your continued support "!

 

I was wrong when I said that there was no change when I set the Hosts file to hosts.old and rebooted. Now ipconfig says that autoconfiguration is enabled and there is an autoconfiguration IP address of 169.254.83.80 and there is no mention of a gateway. Now I cannot ping the router or to the web, nor can I get to my router setup as I could before. If I set the IP address to 192.168.1.2 and the gateway to 192.168.1.1, I can ping the router and the web. But explorer will not address my router setup, web addresses by number menu nor any web address by name as before. Any ideas or questions? I renamed hosts.old to Hosts and disabled the new version of Hosts with no effect. This is like trying to operate a piece of equipment with the control panel buttons having no labels. Trial and error can be informative, if you don't damage the equipment in the process. Where are the tcp settings stored? What is autoconfiguration? I had heard of it until yesterday.

 

Clarke - just think how much you will have learned by the time everything is working again.

But not funny at this point I'm sure.

Autoconfiguration - when an external device sets all your networking values at PC boot time. Most common are DHCP server(which your router can be and will do the "settings" scut work for you) and BootP server.

The IP address you got is a Microsoft feature to allow the PC to boot in a reasonable time when it can't find the network. Not good for anything but does allow the PC to start. NT4 in the same situation would struggle for 10 minutes before starting with all sorts of strange errors.

If you can, I'd suggest setting the router to provide DHCP and insuring it has the correct DNS addresses (2 or 3) provided by your ISP so it can pass them along to your PC. Probably some other values as well. DHCP can assign over 30 different pieces of information if it is set to do so. Not sure if the version your router has is full-featured or not but it can certainly do a few of them.

I'd check for firmware updates for the router, load any you find, and let the thing do it's job of assigning values. Just set the NIC to get everything automatically. Should be IP/netmask/gateway/dns at the very least.

Renaming the hosts file wouldn't normally mess anything up. But if what you posted was accurate, there are a couple of glitches in it. I'll give specifics but first - what the hosts file does for a living:

People like names. www.my-favorite-site.com for instance. Computer like numbers and can't really deal with names. So there has to be some way to tell your PC that www.my-favorite-site.com is really 20.25.146.200. (and please don't click on these links. They are bogus). The earliest way - and still the fastest - is with a simple text file stored on your PC that lists

ip name #optional comment (or with the above example, would list)

20.25.146.200 www.my-favorite-site.com #comment here if you want, or none

The operating system is designed to check for a hosts file first and if an entry is found, to use it and not check any further. That means if www.my-favorite-site.com is not 20.25.146.200 you will never get to it by name. Ever.

If no match in hosts, it will next check for another local text file, LMHOSTS, and only after not finding a match there will it check other sources. For internet use, the "other sources" are DNS (domain name servers) that sit on the internet and do nothing but translate name to IP.

If you put in an IP address for a web site, you bypass all the translation stuff. If you use a name and it is in your local hosts file but wrong, you'll never get to the site because the PC will not check further. If you don't have any DNS listed, you'll never get to the site because your PC won't know where to look for the information.

This last is what seems to be happening to you. Thus my suggestion to make sure your router's DHCP has the correct addresses and is giving them to your PC. You can put them in by hand - hard code them - into your PC but if the ISP ever changes DNS addresses, you'll quit working again.

Since your router is taking it's information from the ISP's DHCP server, a simple reboot of the router and you'll be back in business.

Now to your hosts file.

- The "For Example" line and the ip/names for rhino and acme should all have # at the beginning of the line to make it a comment. Otherwise, your PC will try to read lines it can't understand or sites that are bogus.

- 127.0.0.1 localhost is a standard entry. That address points back to your NIC and was designed for testing. It is also being used these days to block sites you don't want to see. For instance, if you have an entry

127.0.0.1 www.really-raw-porno.com

in the hosts file, you will never see that site no matter what tricks it tries to play on you.

- 216.177.73.139 auto.search.msn.com
- 216.177.73.139 search.netscape.com
- 216.177.73.139 ieautosearch
is a mistake of some kind I think. The address belongs to

OrgName: Cable & Wireless
OrgID: EXCW
Address: 3300 Regency Pkwy
City: Cary
StateProv: NC

and will take you to http://www.igetnet.com/ which probably isn't the result you want from those three searches.

Whew - hadn't intended to post a short novel here but it just sorta grew. I'll back off now and wait for questions or for a

Eureka!! I got it fixed

 

Thanks for the reply, Newt. I have been using computers to run programs since the mid fifties using an IBM 650. "However ", I have never been an OS mechanic and the introduction has been a challenge, to say the least.
I have been wandering around the web since my last post. I found out a bit more about autoconfiguration etc. Interestingly, when the win 2k machine was OK, there was no mention of that feature in the ipconfig report. Now it is there with the 169.--- address. I tried hardwiring the router address in TCP/IP. When I did I could ping the router, but could bring up the router setup screen ( unknown address ) Also DCHP is disabled in ipconfig. the router address was there and the DNS addresses that I have on this machine (laptop). I have set TCP/IP back to automatic. I have removed and reinstalled the NIC card. When I run it's diagnostics, it can talk satisfactorily with the DCHP function ( router). I can look at the router setup from here and it looks like it always did. I did reset the router ( linksys BEFSR41 4 port router) and reset the setup. The two Win 98 machines still get to the web and all three machines can talk to each other and exchange data. I am using the old HOSTS file that has a single 127.--- entry now. It appears that something in the bowels of the win 2k machine is amiss? More Data?--I looked at doing a reinstall of 2K over the current system and I got a message that I had an unfinished install and that I should reboot and allow it to complete. Numerous reboots for different reasons have not solved this. So I cannot reinstall over the current one at the moment. I thought that 2k had a repair function , but I don't see it on the system CD. As the good king said "It's a puzzlement! "

 

Good grief Clarke - you been messing with these things longer than I have and I though I was an old timer. My first was at Mississippi State in 1963.

I agree that if you try to do a reinstall and it barks at you, something is not right with the OS. Probably something as simple as a registry key that is telling the OS it didn't install clean or something. Not sure exactly where the entry would be but I'll certainly poke around some to see if I can turn up specifics.

Would be worth trying a start~run~sfc /scannow to see if it will find system files that are bad or missing and replace them. If so, you'll need to reinstall SP3.

And 2K does have a repair feature but you have to load it. No idea why M$ decided to go that route and I think they did it better by XP. Take a look Here for a good how-to on loading it after you have Windows 2000 already on the system.

 

Newt

I tried the SFC.xx and it found nothing to fix. But I didn't know about it , so that was useful. I did load the socalled Recovery Console from my install CD. It is a group of functions like what you found in DOS. It doesn't appear that I know what to fix with a bit editor and the others don't seem useful for the problem at hand.
I found out how to turn off the IPAutoconfiguration and did so. The IPCONFIG screen nows shows the address as 0.0.0.0. Doesn't ring any bells!I went back to specifying the computer address and the gateway address. I can ping out into the web. But, in all of this, explorer won't go the web with a numerical address as I could earlier. This is the update to now. I am turning off the machine and am going to Arizona for a week with my little spouse to look at red rocks and other such things. I will take the ever faithful laptop and will look in on occasion.

 

Clarke - at this point, I'm stumped.

But the error when you try to reinstall the OS is interesting and might well turn up a solution. Could you please post the entire, exact error message.

And check your event logs for warnings or errors when you try the reload. Probably easiest to dump the logs and then try the OS install. Easier to fine related errors that way.
If you find something, double-click it open, click the icon below the up/down arrows (sends a text-only copy to the clipboard) and paste it in here.