Computer won't make new connections

[SoB Bolton]

Hello everyone. I've had this problem for a few months now and it's becoming more and more frequent. I've done numerous searches to find someone with the same problem on a forum like this and haven't had any luck.

Basically, occasionally while I'm on my laptop (Toshiba Satellite running Vista) my computer will suddenly refuse to make new internet connections. Any webpages I try opening in FF or IE come up near-instantly with the unable to make a connection page. Other programs that connect to the internet (Yahoo, Skype, etc.) won't connect either. The odd part is that they'll stay connected and work perfectly fine if they connected before the problem happens...but, of course, if I sign out then try to sign back in it won't let me. I can ping sites just fine using a url or ip address.

The problem happens about once or twice a day, at home and at work, on a wired and wireless connection, so I know it's not a network problem. The only thing I've found that fixes it is to restart, and hope it takes a while before coming back. The last week or so it's been happening at least twice a day, when before it was 2 or 3 days between occurrences.

Any questions I can answer to help solve the problem, please let me know. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[Trotter]

Have you tried updating the drivers for your wireless? That would be the place to start.

 

[SoB Bolton]

I'll try, but I'm not sure how much it'll help. It happens when I'm plugged in to a network, too, even if my wireless is turned off.

EDIT: had the most recent drivers.

 

[Trotter]

http://www.techist.com/forums/f51/spyware-removal-guide-osiris-updated-8-18-2008-a-165828/

That would be my next step.

 

[SoB Bolton]

Hmm, I appear to have been mistaken before. When I turn off my wireless at work and just plug into the network I haven't had the problem in the last couple of days.

 

[SoB Bolton]

Ok, it definitely doesn't happen when my wireless is turned off. It will happen if I'm plugged in and the wireless is on, however.

The computer is definitely virus and spyware free and I've uninstalled the wireless adapter and installed the latest drivers, including after the problem happens, with no success.

I've also had no success resetting the router using the network and sharing center as well as netsh.

 

[Trotter]

It sounds like something in the network settings in your laptop (duh, I know). With it happening when you are connected to both wired and wireless, I would say you have some sort of conflict between the two.

Have you tried looking in Event Viewer to see if it reveals anything? That would be a point of interest.

Another point would be to check with Toshiba and see if anyone else is having this problem. I don't know if they have a support forum, but it would be worth looking into.

Without sitting down in front of it, that's my best guess. I don't run Vista, though... hopefully Mak will see this, as he is the Vista guy.

 

[SoB Bolton]

Oh, it also happens when I'm at home and solely on wireless. If it just happened when I was on both I wouldn't be that concerned. I'll check Toshiba and see if I can find anything.

EDIT: Of course Toshiba's support site is being revamped and down right now. My luck

 

[SoB Bolton]

Wow, I was wrong again. I had the same problem with a fresh restart with the wireless turned off the whole time...it just seemed to take a bit longer. It seems to be like some file or cache is just being overloaded or something, like it isn't dumping when it should.

Toshiba has nothing on their support site for this particular problem.

 

[SoB Bolton]

Hmm, may have figured it out myself. I was playing around in netsh after it happened again this morning and found that the firewall was set to block all incoming communication...turning it off seems to have fixed the problem.

netsh advfirewall set allprofiles state off