Computer not getting wired internet?

[NightSurge]

Ok, I went to work one day and my boss called me in to ask about his home computer which seems to not be getting an internet connection through his wired modem.

So I went to his house, checked the basic things like activity lights, the cables, firewall issues, driver issues, hardware issues, and have found nothing wrong yet. Granted I didn't have anything with me to check for viruses/spamware/registry errors/etc.

What I was able to do, though, is connect to the modem from their PC. I could connect to it, and the page displayed information saying the gateway was "Connected/Open" and the internet was "connected." Then his phone line went out when I was on line with Verizon technical support, so he went to a Verizon store and they said his line went out. His phone line is back up now, but no DSL still. Oh and any/all filters were set up correctly.

Then the next day Verizon sent a technician and my boss said he brought a laptop with him and was able to connect both wirelessly and wired to the internet through his modem. Now I am really stumped. It just randomly stopped getting internet one day last week. The icon says it is connected, and I can get to the modem through the PC just fine, so obviously the cable isn't bad, nor the NIC. What could be keeping the internet from getting all the way to the PC and just stopping at the modem? I thought perhaps a MAC address filter was maybe accidentally blocking his computer, but then how would I connect to the modem to begin with?

Any ideas? He says if it doesn't get fixed soon, he will probably drop it off at my apartment to try some more thorough tests. He was going to take it to Best Buy, so I offered to look at it for free since I know Best Buy would try to take $200 from him for a 3 year old computer.

EDIT: Thanks for the move. I wasn't sure where to put it since I figured the answer probably involved the OS to some degree, but the problem involved networking.

 

[Bruce]

what happens when he tries to connect?

is it only IE or is there another browser?

can you ping the internet?

 

[NightSurge]

Tried IE and Netscape which is what he had installed. When he tries to connect it says it is connected, but every browser says "Page cannot be displayed" for any webpage. He can connect to the modem and see the status, so clearly there is nothing wrong with his ethernet port or cat 5 cable. I did not try pinging, because he told me Verizon already tried and could not get through.

 

[DoubleHelix]

It's not clear from the description of the problem what the network topology looks like. Is there a router? Is he connecting wired or wirelessly? Do neither work? But they both work fine when you take your computer? And where does the line dropping out fit in? If there were actually a problem with the phone and/or DSL line, no computer would be able to connect. It simply doesn't make sense that the connection was broken and requiring the visit of a tech yet you were able to connect your computer without a problem.

The symptoms and description just don't add up.

 

[akasixcon]

im having this trouble too for my Trendnet Tew-672gr router

 

[NightSurge]

It's not clear from the description of the problem what the network topology looks like. Is there a router? Is he connecting wired or wirelessly? Do neither work? But they both work fine when you take your computer? And where does the line dropping out fit in? If there were actually a problem with the phone and/or DSL line, no computer would be able to connect. It simply doesn't make sense that the connection was broken and requiring the visit of a tech yet you were able to connect your computer without a problem.

The symptoms and description just don't add up.

The problem is with the wired internet, and only with this computer. The line dropping out was a coincidence and since it has been fixed, the internet on this one computer still doesn't work. They sent a tech and HIS computer was able to connect (I assume both wireless and wired). I did not try any laptop of mine. It is an all-in one verizon modem/router/switch.

 

[NightSurge]

Any ideas? I just tried connecting it to a different internet service, and the same thing happens. It says "connected", but no beans. Could this be a sign of failing ethernet port?

Some more results. I tried Safe Mode, still no internet even though it says "Connected."

I tried pinging the computer, and I do get all packets to reply. But if I ping a computer FROM this one with the issues, I get no response. I ran a limited Spyware scan, and found 7 things that I removed. How can I run a virus scan with the most updated lists on this PC without an internet connection? Is there any way I can upload the list file to this computer?

EDIT: He had AVG on, but it hadn't updated the virus list file in 20 days. I ran it anyways and it gave me a kernel32.dll and a ntoskrnl.exe file which it claims are in an error state and need urgent attention to their configuration. Could this be causing the internet issues? And is there a way to repair the .dll file and this ntoskrnl.exe file?

 

[oldskool]

I did a quick Google of these two files:

ntoskrnl.exe is a bootup process and kernel32.dll controls memory management, interrupts, and input/output operations. What I am seeing between the process descriptions from my Google search says you may want to check for viruses and spyware intrusion. Osiris (one of the Security Mods) has a guide in the Virus forum. You could try that out.

Here is the link:

http://www.techist.com/forums/f51/spyware-removal-guide-osiris-updated-11-13-2008-a-165828/

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Okay, so it says 'connected'. Is it being assigned an ip address thru dhcp? If so, is that address correct?
Can the pc ping the router's ip address?
Have you tried totally disabling any firewalls running?
Can the pc ping ANY address (e.g. even it's own loopback)?

 

[NightSurge]

It is being assigned an IP address. I can ping the computer from any other PC on the network, but I can't ping anything from the computer with issues. I didn't try it's own loop back, though. And it originally could connect to the router/modem just fine. I disabled all firewalls. I will try doing a spyware and virus removal again if I can get updated lists without having an internet connection. I was about to give up and assume that just the ethernet port was going bad...

EDIT: A lot of the programs from Osiris's guide require internet connections to update so they can be run with the most recent updates. I won't be able to do this since the main issue is that I can't access the net. Will I need to take the hard drive out and use an external enclosure so I can scan it on my PC?