Intermittent failure to contact DHCP server

Hello,

I have a computer running Windows XP Home Edition SP2 that is only able to connect to the router intermittently.

Other computers have no trouble on the network and I have swapped the Ethernet cable to no avail.

The network interface card has a green light which is solid and a yellow light that illuminates when the Ethernet cable is plugged in to connect with the router.

The computer boots up with a random address something like 169.254.117.2. If I manage (this doesn't happen that often successfully) to get a connection working by calling ipconfig -renew, it works until I reboot the system and then again have trouble connecting.

I'm thinking that maybe the network interface card is bad or the slot into which it is plugged is bad. Could this also be a software/driver issue? There were some viruses on this machine that have been cleaned up and spyware/adware too that was removed. I also ran ccleaner to clean up the system registry.

If software could evidence this intermittent behavior, which drivers would you recommend that I reinstall? The control panel shows properties of the 'LAN or High-Speed Internet' for 'Local Area Connection' as being an "Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection" on PCI bus 2 device 8 driver version 7.0.26.0 dated 4-Mar-03.

I tried running 'WinSock XP Fix 1.2' but it failed to backup the registry successfully, so that made me nervous and I didn't run it's fix aspect. It complains about backing up to a file:

Error saving file
C:\ERDNT\SECURITY !

Continue with the next file?

Selecting 'Yes' gets the same error again with the progress bar moved ahead a bit.

Thanks for your ideas on how to resolve this issue.

-William

 

The symptoms you describe sound like faulty hardware to me.

You can try reseting TCP/IP with:

netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt

notes here.

But I think it'll turn out to be the card.

 

First, I was incorrect, there is no NIC card, it is built into the mother board. Does that mean I can still use a PCI card NIC instead?

Second, I ran the netsh command to reset the ip and got the following log results:

reset SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dhcp\Parameters\Options\15\RegLocation
old REG_MULTI_SZ =
SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\?\DhcpDomain
SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters\DhcpDomain

reset SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netbt\Parameters\Interfaces\Tcpip_{83E9DBD7-B1D3-4936-BA52-8C82A1C3EE9C}\NameServerList
old REG_MULTI_SZ =
<empty>

added SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netbt\Parameters\Interfaces\Tcpip_{83E9DBD7-B1D3-4936-BA52-8C82A1C3EE9C}\NetbiosOptions
reset SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netbt\Parameters\Interfaces\Tcpip_{85D65442-3885-4B40-8AB2-551CFBC7832A}\NameServerList
old REG_MULTI_SZ =
<empty>

added SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netbt\Parameters\Interfaces\Tcpip_{85D65442-3885-4B40-8AB2-551CFBC7832A}\NetbiosOptions
reset SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netbt\Parameters\Interfaces\Tcpip_{9329B7AD-B060-4D25-ABDD-297434D7E95B}\NameServerList
old REG_MULTI_SZ =
<empty>

added SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netbt\Parameters\Interfaces\Tcpip_{CADA99B3-DE65-4A62-B1AA-D001077FEEB2}\NetbiosOptions
added SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netbt\Parameters\Interfaces\Tcpip_{CD2E7BBD-966C-4949-9209-2FD41C61B9C5}\NetbiosOptions
deleted SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netbt\Parameters\EnableLmhosts
deleted SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{83E9DBD7-B1D3-4936-BA52-8C82A1C3EE9C}\NameServer
deleted SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{85D65442-3885-4B40-8AB2-551CFBC7832A}\NameServer
reset SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{9329B7AD-B060-4D25-ABDD-297434D7E95B}\AddressType
old REG_DWORD = 1

added SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{9329B7AD-B060-4D25-ABDD-297434D7E95B}\DisableDynamicUpdate
deleted SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{9329B7AD-B060-4D25-ABDD-297434D7E95B}\IpAutoconfigurationAddress
deleted SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{9329B7AD-B060-4D25-ABDD-297434D7E95B}\IpAutoconfigurationMask
deleted SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{9329B7AD-B060-4D25-ABDD-297434D7E95B}\IpAutoconfigurationSeed
reset SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{9329B7AD-B060-4D25-ABDD-297434D7E95B}\RawIpAllowedProtocols
old REG_MULTI_SZ =
0

reset SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{9329B7AD-B060-4D25-ABDD-297434D7E95B}\TcpAllowedPorts
old REG_MULTI_SZ =
0

reset SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\{9329B7AD-B060-4D25-ABDD-297434D7E95B}\UdpAllowedPorts
old REG_MULTI_SZ =
0

deleted SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DontAddDefaultGatewayDefault
deleted SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\EnableIcmpRedirect
deleted SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\EnableSecurityFilters
deleted SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\SearchList
deleted SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\UseDomainNameDevolution
reset Linkage\UpperBind for PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1050&SUBSYS_01551028&REV_02\4&1C660DD6&0&40F0. bad value was:
REG_MULTI_SZ =
PSched

reset Linkage\UpperBind for ROOT\MS_NDISWANIP\0000. bad value was:
REG_MULTI_SZ =
PSched

<completed>

Once reset, is a reboot required before the network will work again? It seems to be working better now after reboot.

 

I spoke too soon, while I had an ip address, the system lost the connection and an ipconfig -renew does not work "An error occurred while renewing interface Local Area Connection : unable to contact your DHCP server. Request has timed out. "

If I add a NIC card to the PCI bus slot, how do I configure the system to use that one over the built in motherboard ethernet connection?

Thanks.

 

I'm stumped, I've swapped the NIC and that did not resolve the issue, I swapped the patch cord and port of the router and that did not resolve the issue, I turned off the Comodo firewall and that did not help. I've run 'netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt' and that did not resolve the issue.

What else can I try other than reinstalling the whole operating system?

 

Any other PC's connected to this router?

 

Yes, all the other PCs connected work fine and do not exhibit this behavior.

 

New OS Install fixes

I added a new drive and installed the Windows OS from the manufacturer's DVD and the problem is gone. So apparently, this was a software issue and not a hardware issue. Too bad we were unable to locate the software issue and fix it instead of a from scratch install of the OS.