Acquiring IP address...

I was asked last week to take a look at a friend's laptop (Fujitsu Siemens Amilo D CY 23) as it had stopped accessing the Uni network for some reason. I had a little look through and noticed that XP was completely unpatched :rolleyes: and the virus scanner was out of date. So I pulled out my software toolbox and removed all the spyware, applied SP1, SP2 and AutopatcherXP, reset the IP stack and applied WinsockxpFix to deal with the abuse the PC had received. The drivers haven't been touched as the Fujitsu Siemens site says they're all included in XP.

I then tried to connect to the network using a standard CAT5 - no joy. Windows reports the DNS servers but says that it's "Acquring IP address" and never actually does. Can't ping anything cos there's no IP address to do it from. There are no custom settings under the connection and firewalls are off. I sent her to speak to the IT services people in case they'd booted her for having dodgy security but they hadn't. Haven't got round to updating the virus scanner cos it needs the web/network. Can't do a format cos she won't have backed up and would be grumpy at the prospect.

Any ideas?

to get a proper error message, run this from the cmd prompt.


ipconfig /renew

If it's successfull, read all the IP information to make sure it's accurate.

if it error's out, please give us the error

Thanks for the speedy reply. I'd tried that before but I couldn't remember what it moaned about, but a re-run gives the error: "rpc server is unavailable". I've tried restarting the rpc server but it doesnt help. Any ideas?

I had a similar problem once where the laptop had to be plugged in with its power supply for the onboard network to work. ( wireless worked ok on battery though)

Thanks for the reply. The laptop is always plugged into the mains because "the battery doesn't last long". I wonder why :rolleyes:. I've tried the machine with 2 different cables and 2 different network ports and neither helped.

Any other ideas?

Most universities give you setup instructions on how to connect to their network.

1. when the laptop is plugged in do you see any network activity on the network port? (lil green lights??) if not you know its a comms issue. either card, cable or port in the wall

2. if you do have green lights, try going into the command prompt do ipconfig /release then ipconfig /renew (whilst connected) and it should pick up a new IP.

hope this helps

Thanks for the reply. I've connected computers to the network on many occasions so it's not procedure problems. Proxies are setup correctly too.

I'll check for activity on the port later on. I'm not sure there are any lights however. The port certainly detects the cable (at least according to windows) and the network port is fully operational according to IT services, although I will check that later on with my laptop.

I've tried the release, renew procedure you descibe and that had no effect.

Any other suggestions?

Have you tried doing a IE/Winsock fix? Could be there is a coruption in the network itself such as the NIC drivers. Try removing the NIC from device manager and reinstalling the drivers again.

I tried using the winsockxpfix program you can pick up on the web but that didnt seem to help any. I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling the NIC later on if I get the chance.

Check services and make sure DHCP and DNS services are started.

Tried all the above mentioned things. Checked the services and DHCP wasn't running. Tried to start it and it moaned about dependencies. Checked them and a quick search on the web told me that SYMTDI was a piece of norton filth. Removed it from the reg and the web was back. There are still a few issues but nothing I can't sort with a windows update, a virus scan and some creative use of ad-aware.

Cheers guys!