Hi, I was referred to here from the malware subforums. I have this problem where I randomly cannot access cnn, google, gmail, and youtube. Originally I thought it was malware, but Tomk did not see any malware problems with my computer. I've been contemplating whether to reformat or not, and I believe I'll make my decision after I hear some additional input from here.


Here's the link to my other post in the malware subforums for more additional information:
http://forums.whatthetech.com/Internet_Problem_t104483.html

Thanks.

Hi Scathe. Although the information is not clear in your other thread, it sounds like you are having a problem on a laptop? And, it sounds like that laptop is probably wireless?

If this is the case, what are the results if you plug it directly into your router like your desktop is?

This all sounds like a wireless internet problem and that is going to be because you have interference in the house, a problematic wireless router, a problematic wireless adapter in the laptop, etc... You say it works at other people's homes. So, it is probably not the wireless adapter in your laptop that is acting up, nor any software or setting on the laptop. That does not eliminate the possibility that you are having interference or a problem with your wireless router.

After trying the laptop with it directly connected to the router via cable, switch back to wireless and unhook the cable.

Now, click start -> run -> type cmd and press ENTER.
At the command prompt copy and paste the following two commands:

ipconfig /all > "%userprofile%\desktop\postme.txt"
ping google.com -t >> "%userprofile%\desktop\postme.txt"

After you enter the second command the command prompt window will appear to "hang." This is OK. I want you to let this run for at least 10 minutes. At the same time I want you to browse and use the internet. I want you to use the internet until you have a problem displaying one of those webpages, or at least 10 minutes. Whichever one is longer. When you are finished, forcefully close the command prompt window by clicking the 'X' in the upper right hand corner. Now, please attach the postme.txt file on your desktop to the forum.

Please also provide the exact model number and revision of your wireless router. And, ofcourse, specify if this is a laptop, and how it is connected to the internet (wireless, or wired).

EDIT: With the information you have provided I can say with almost 100% certainty that reformatting your hard drive is not going to fix the problem.

This post has been edited by appleoddity: Jul 2 2009, 10:12 PM

If you have already read my previous instructions. Please re-read them and try those two commands again. I just realized that I made a mistake on those two commands and forgot my quotes. Silly me. That's what I get for deviating from my normal methods and not testing the new command.

I have edited my previous post so that the two commands are correct and will work now.

Hi appleoddity,


Let's see if I can answer a few of your questions to help clarify this situation. Yes, I am on a laptop. This laptop is always on wireless unless some kind of emergency pops up. The router model that I use is Linksys WRT54G version 2. The firmware for the router is the most recent one available. I just tested my laptop on wired internet, and it was just like my desktop. I have speculated that the one at fault may have been a router, but I haven't been able to confirm. I'm hoping you can.

As for your instructions pertaining the cmd prompt, there was a slight problem. It didn't exactly "hang". I copied/pasted it in, I hit enter, and a few seconds later the cmd prompt was ready for the next task.

I have taken the liberty to ping cnn.com along with google.com. At the time of this test, my google was working, so I added cnn.com.

I have to add one more bit on information, I have pinged these sites before and I found an anomaly. Naturally, I assumed that if a site wasn't working for my laptop, it would time out just like it did with cnn.com. However, even when google wasn't loading properly for me, the ping still produces results. The difference was that the time was substantially larger than when the site was working normally. I'll try and give you a log of that whenever my google goes down again.

Regardless here's the log.



Windows IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : THORA

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

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

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

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

DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : domain_not_set.invalid



Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection 6:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : domain_not_set.invalid

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-16-6F-01-D7-B4

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.101

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

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

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

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Thursday, July 02, 2009 8:49:17 PM

Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Friday, July 03, 2009 8:49:17 PM



Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:



Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-10-C6-E3-21-DC



Pinging google.com [74.125.67.100] with 32 bytes of data:



Reply from 74.125.67.100: bytes=32 time=84ms TTL=52

Reply from 74.125.67.100: bytes=32 time=88ms TTL=52

Reply from 74.125.67.100: bytes=32 time=88ms TTL=52

Reply from 74.125.67.100: bytes=32 time=85ms TTL=52



Ping statistics for 74.125.67.100:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 84ms, Maximum = 88ms, Average = 86ms



Pinging cnn.com [157.166.226.25] with 32 bytes of data:



Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Request timed out.



Ping statistics for 157.166.226.25:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

Thanks for clarifying that information...

I messed up the command a second time!!! Ugh.. I have edited the ping command so it will do a continuous ping. It should perform as stated in my previous post now. Please copy and paste the new ping command from above and follow my instructions about letting it run for at least 10 minutes and using the internet until it messes up. I want to see the ping times and results when you experience a problem.

Here's the new log, google was working fine at the moment as well.



Windows IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : THORA

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

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

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

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

DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : domain_not_set.invalid



Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection 6:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : domain_not_set.invalid

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel® PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-16-6F-01-D7-B4

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.101

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

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

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

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Thursday, July 02, 2009 11:04:38 PM

Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Friday, July 03, 2009 11:04:38 PM



Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:



Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-10-C6-E3-21-DC

 10min_ping_google.txt ( 47.72K ) Number of downloads: 2


This post has been edited by appleoddity: Jul 3 2009, 07:06 AM

Its not exactly what I would've expected for someone having internet trouble. The numbers were not real steady, but they also weren't out of the ordinary I don't think for wireless.

When the ping test is running, the object is not to get google to mess up, but to use the internet in general until ANY webpage messes up. If you are having connection trouble we will probably see some issues show up in the ping test at the same time. Do you recall if any webpages messed up while the ping test was running?

Let's do this...

http://downloads.linksysbycisco.com/downlo...5_UG_NC-WEB.pdf

There are three different versions of your router (1.0, 1.3, 1.5). The above instructions are for 1.5 and I think that the configuration settings should be mostly identical regardless of version number.

Under Wireless -> Basic Wireless Settings in the router configuration, try changing the channel (which is usually default to 6), to either 12 or 1. Try 12. If your internet connection does not improve, try 1. This is the easiest thing to try when there is wireless connectivity issues. It seems like all wireless routers default to channel 6, and if there are any others in the area, or some other wireless device using that channel there can be issues. Be sure to save your settings after making adjustments in the router's configuration.

Lets see if that helps your internet problem at all.

If it doesn't, I would like for you to run that ping test again and let it run until you do experience internet trouble on any webpage. Then, instead of copying and pasting the contents of the file, please upload it as an attachment. It is too large to be copy and pasted here to the forum. It really clutters things up.

EDIT: You can access your router's built in configuration utility by clicking here: Linksys Web Based Configuration - Default login and password is: admin and admin.

This post has been edited by appleoddity: Jul 3 2009, 07:21 AM

Ok, I tried changing the wireless channel to 1 and 11 (I don't have 12). That did not improve my situation. Therefore, I tried the ping test again. This time, google and a slew of other sites didn't work. I stopped the test when I tried to go on staples.com and failed.

This time, the log is...different. The test lasted for around 7-8 minutes.

While this was happening were you able to access ANY websites?

Have you tried to connect any other computers up to your wireless network?

I know that this is kind of a drag to do, but I would like to run a couple more ping tests. The results from that last one are also unexpected. It appears to show your connection was active and working because DNS worked, but you could not establish a connection with google. Are you sure that when this problem occurs, you are still able to access the internet on your desktop computer? And, is your desktop computer plugged into the Linksys router, or the high-speed modem?

Can you tell me who your internet provider is and what the make and model # of your high-speed modem is?

Lets open two command prompt windows this time. At each window please run one command each:

ping 192.168.1.1 -t > "%userprofile%\desktop\postme1.txt"
ping google.com -t > "%userprofile%\desktop\postme2.txt"

Attach the postme1.txt and postme2.txt files.

One command will try to get all the way out to the internet (google) and the other will only try to communicate with your Linksys router. Run these commands again until you experience a problem.

This post has been edited by appleoddity: Jul 3 2009, 05:24 PM

I just want to clarify something, the problem generally happens on only those few sites I mentioned earlier. So if I go surfing randomly on the net, there's a good chance that I'll be fine if I avoid those 4-5 sites. So, it's difficult for me to run into a problem unless I'm trying to on purpose. (The Staples one earlier was from sheer coincidence)

When the ping test happened earlier, I was still able to access several different websites.

There are no other computers that are linked up to my wireless network. And I am confident that the net on my desktop is working even if it isn't working properly on my laptop. The desktop is plugged into the router. I believe my internet provider is AT & T and the high speed modem is Speedstream 5100.

And finally about are the logs, I've been surfing for 20-30 minutes and I didn't encounter any major problems except that I wasn't able to connect to some of those sites.

Well.. That is certainly a strange one.

If you are certain that it is only a few websites that are acting up, but it is ONLY when you are connected to your wireless network, and everywhere else and hard wired it works fine, that is just weird.

It pretty much seems like there is a piece of software that is blocking the connection. But, I don't know why it would block only a few sites, and I don't know why it would only block them on your network when connected wirelessly.

I was reviewing your logs over in the malware removal forum. The only software that really stands out as capable of blocking your internet connection would be your ESET security software. But. Lenovo loads so much junk on their computers that its a huge mess sifting through it. I'm not sure which brand is worse, Lenovo or Toshiba. They both load their computers down with so much un-necessary junk its hard to tell top from bottom.

So, lets first try disabling everything that we can with msconfig.

Temporarily disable services and startup items with msconfig:

• Click Start -> Run -> Type msconfig and press ENTER.
• When msconfig opens, click the Services tab, check "Hide All Microsoft Services" and click Disable All
• Now, click the Startup tab, and click Disable All.
• Click, OK, to close msconfig and restart your computer.
  
  These instructions are for testing purposes only. It could possibly disable your anti-virus or other security software and leave your computer in a more vulnerable state. Use this only to determine if the problem persists after a reboot. Once done, return your system to a normal startup mode by opening msconfig again and clicking "normal startup" under the General tab.

See if the problem persists after this.

If it does, the last thing I can suggest to try is to completely remove the ESET security software and see if it resolves your problem. You'll have to reinstall it, if you want to keep it.

Let me know what your results are.

I think I solved my problem....

During your last post, it got me thinking. I thought to myself that maybe I should test to see if other computers can wirelessly connect to my router and surf normally. So I found my old usb wireless adapter and plugged it into my desktop. The desktop went through all of those sites just fine. So, it couldn't possibly be the router anymore. Then I did something I should have done from the start, reinstalling the wireless driver. If I wasn't so paranoid that it was malware, I would have done that right from the start. Instead I scanned my computer with like 4-5 different malware scanners, 3 anti virus scanners, etc. And even though those scans took hours, I didn't even find much malware on my computer. Just some cookies and no viruses.

At the moment, my net seems to be working very well. But, as I mentioned before in the other thread, this happens randomly so I cannot confirm it immediately. I'll post again in 2-3 hours to confirm if my problem is finally fixed or not.

I hope you did get the problem resolved.. Geeze, that will be ridiculous if it was something as easy as reinstalling the driver. It just doesn't make much sense that it would be the problem though. Its should've been either all or nothing, not a few sites not working. That still doesn't make any sense.

Well, it still works so I guess this is a fairly ridiculous problem. I still don't get why problems would arise from the driver nor why only a few sites were affected. But hey, as long as it's working I'm not going to complain. This nuisance has been following me for the past 10 days, so I'm glad it's finally over. If the problem does come back, well....I'll be back.

But seriously, if it wasn't for your comments I wouldn't have thought about doing what I did. So thanks for your time and help appleoddity. I hope you have a wonderful 4th of July.