LOST Internet connectivity in Windows XP Pro... PLEASE HELP!

[TD Carusi]

Good evening all-

I'd like to pick you brains for a few minutes about my
fairly NEW Dell Inspiron 8200 Laptop- in particular, about
how to repair or replace TCP/IP in Windows XP Pro...

My system suddenly lost net connectivity right after I
installed Zcloud.net's National Network Dialer... And as
soon as I tried to use it during my recent road trip- it
not only failed to allow me dial-up Internet access, it
also killed my previously fully functional broadband
connection...

Uninstalling the dialer brought no improvement whatsoever,
and for some reason, the system wouldn't let me restore it
back to an earlier pre- Dialer date...

Yesterday I spent over three hours on the phone with Dell
Premier Tech Support, and they kept insisting the problem
was IE 6, which I couldn't really dispute at first- except
based on intuition as a systrem support engineer myself-
until I found a full offline Netscape 7.1 installer on the
net and pulled it down on my server, and burned it to CD,
then loaded that puppy up... Guess what? The problem
remained.

No big surprise that- TRUE to form- Dell Premier Tech
Support quit LONG before the problem was resolved,
instead, resorting to their standard final resolution-
telling the abused user to reload the OS and all Aps...
again!


I pretty much eviscerated IE 6 trying to kill before
finding ths article on how to uninstall or repair it
(http://windows.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?
site=http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q293/
9/07.ASP) so I could try to reload it, but apparently a
registry entry still exists somewhere because it keeps
telling me I have the latest and greatest version and will
NOT allow me to reload... Even after following the
articles directions- even though it's terminally ill and
critically wounded and requires reload before it'll ever
work again...

My Ethernet connection is setup for DHCP, and is attached
to a Netgear Router (which is working fine) at 192.168.0.1
with a subnet of 255.255.0.0 which seems wrong somehow
(but my tcp/ip is rusty)... Shouldn't it be at 255.255.
255.0? Anyway- it's pulling an I.P. Address from
somewhere, yet it's not a derivative of 192.168.0.1- like
192.168.0.2, or 192.168.0.5- which it should be at, since
it's both hard-wired through Ethernet and has a Belkin
(which is also working fine) Wireless card.

I also have hardware and software firewalls, which have
been completely removed from the equation... so that's not
it either....

It's just really weird- I can't even connect directly to
the Netgear Router at http://192.168.0.1 anymore like I've
always been able to before... Yet I can from my Win2k
Server and my OS 9.1 G-3 Mac.

I've tried to remove the router, and connect directly to
the Netgear Cable Modem- but no joy.

I also keep trying to uninstall and reinstall TCP/IP, but
Windows XP Pro won't let me...


I'd very much like to avoid having to do the 4th COMPLETE
software reload of this piece of junk in the 4 months I've
had it... But it's looking grim at the moment because I
cannot function without Internet being accessible on this
beast...especially since this craptop has already had the
following hardware replaced-> RAM, motherboard, HDD,
Video, Sound and harnesses <-Dell Premier Tech Support has
basically shotgunned it twice now... yet it remains the
ULTIMATE lemon laptop...

Please let me know if any of you have any bright ideas.
Thanks!

 

[Tanya]

To Reinstall TCP/IP do the following:

Navigate to: C:\windows\inf

Find the File: nettcpip.inf

Right click the file and choose install

With regard to the speed of the command, it is instantaneous, that is why it
will almost seem like it did nothing at all

----------------------------------------------------------------------

To repair Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x for Windows XP:

Note: Before proceeding, ensure that your Microsoft Windows XP CD-ROM is
available.

From the Start menu, choose Run.

In the Open field, type sfc /scannow

Choose the OK button.

Restart the computer when the System File Checker program finishes.



Alternate fix to repair Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x for Windows XP:

Note: Before proceeding, ensure that your Microsoft Windows XP CD-ROM is
available.

From the Start menu, select Search, and choose Files or Folders.

Select the More Advanced Options item and ensure that there is a checkmark
beside the Search hidden files and folder option.

In the Name field, type ie.inf

In the Look in drop-down menu, select C: or the letter of the hard drive
that contains the Windows folder.

Choose the Search Now button. The correct ie.inf file should be located in
the Windows\Inf folder.

Using the right-hand mouse button, select the ie.inf file and choose Install
from the drop-down menu that appears.

Restart the computer when the computer finishes copying files.

Third option from the cmd

rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132
%windir%\Inf\ie.inf

These are off some notes I have. Hope one of them works for you.
You didn't mention the chipset for your nic or if you have installed SP1
before your nic drivers. Also did you do a restore to take SP1 off at any
time?

 

[Bob Willis]

I had a similar problem and it wound up being the NIC card although the
hardware device manager said that the card was functioning properly. If you
are using a built in port, try to disable it and use a PC card NIC if you
have one to see if fixes the problem.