Odd internet connectivity issue

T

The Bryophyte

Gawd
Joined
Jun 24, 2001
Messages
974
I am working on a laptop with an internet connection issue I can't seem to resolve under windows xp. It gets an IP via DHCP without trouble and it can ping websites reliably. Despite this, I can't navigate to a website. No matter what, I get a "not found" error.

The computer exhibits this behavior whether I connect with a dial-up or LAN adapter. Also, I have done many virus scans and run hijackthis, ad-aware, spybot, and microsoft antispyware. I feel confident that this is not a malware problem. I have also performed a windows xp repair install.

Any suggestions? All are appreciated.
 
Make sure no proxy servers are enabled in the settings of the browser. Try a different browser (like Firefox or whatever your preference) to see if the problem is limited to the current browser.
 
There are no proxy servers enabled and it displays the same behavior using firefox as it does in IE. Also, I can ping websites by name. I did find out that I can connect to the internet if I boot into "safe mode with networking", which is interesting but doesn't seem to help me much.

Thanks for the responses. Please keep them coming if you have ideas.
 
To me, it does sound despite your best efforts like a malware problem.

I would suggest perhaps running Winsockfix - being that the connection works in safemode something that's running when your in a standard is preventing you from accessing any dns entries.

Google Winsockfix, run that - if there is still no glory, report back. :)
 
I ran winsockfix long ago my friend. Any more suggestions for this miserable bastard of a notebook?
 
That's where I'm headed it looks like. This is clearly not a hardware issue or one related to a device driver, so I will probably back up and format the damn thing tomorrow. I just hate to lose to a software problem like this....
 
I know how you feel - unfortunately, sometime we must give in for the better good :p
 
Check the "hosts" file. WinXP has it at c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc folder. Check that file for weird stuff

You should have 1 entry:that doenst have "hashes" in front:

127.0.0.1 localhost


If there's anything else, malware/firewall/other software has made changes.

Hosts file overrides DNS lookups.
 
The hosts file is empty. Not only is it empty, but I made it read-only to make sure things weren't screwing with it.
 
I'd say it's time for a format, but if that's not an option and you're really desparate, you could install a packet sniffer such as Ethereal on the computer, then capture packets while attempting to load a web page.

You should see
1. Request to DNS server for lookup of website
2. Reply from DNS server with website IP
3. TCP SYN packet destination port 80 to that web server IP
4. TCP SYN ACK from webserver
5. TCP ACK from your computer
6. HTTP GET request from your computer
7. lots more packets back and forth
 
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