Very confusing problem

Hello,
I'm at the end of my wits, and looking for help :)

I am running a Windows 98se computer connected to a LinkSys BEFW11S4 router, which is hooked up to two other computers. The adapter in the computer in quesiton is a D-Link DFE 530TX+ PCI 10/100 Ethernet Adapter.

Here is the problem:

For the past few months I've been running this computer with a strange problem. Within an hour or so of surfing the internet, sometimes much less time, sometimes more, all internet browsers stop working. They just time out on every request to load a website. However, no other internet capability was disturbed - ICQ still worked, IRC still worked.

I had always figured it was my old ethernet card - a Siemens Realtek 10/100, that was causing the problems. So yesterday, I finally get upset at it, and decide to take it out and reinstall it, hopefully making it better.

Instead, I make it worse. I remove it from the PCI slot, put it back in, reinstall the drivers, and now all internet capability is gone. No ICQ, no IRC, websites don't even try to load, they just time-out immediately.

I thought the problem was with the ethernet card, so I bought a new one, the D-Link I have installed now. No difference. I reinstalled Windows98, and again, no difference.

I still have network connection, however, as I can explore any part of the LAN, such as going into the harddrives of the other computers on the network. The other computers, btw, have no difficulty accessing the internet.

I have tried resetting the LinkSys Router many times, changing cables, etc.

What could be the problem?

Thanks for any help,
Voronwe

So welcome to windrivers :thumbs:

Since this is 98 it sounds like DUN & the TCP stack got 'fubar-ed !' (it mighn't be, but since its an 'easy' procedure lets give it a whirl - as its my 'number one suspect' ;))

DUN 1.4 Update @ M$ - so go to windows components add/remove - uninstall DUN & then apply the update - it'll do no harm anyway as its an update you 'require' ...

Hello Confus-ed, and thanks for the welcome and the advice :)

Unfortunetly, that did not work. I downloaded the update for Win98 SE, uninstalled the previous DUN, and applied the update, but no change occured.

So you can network browse but no net - so that completely eliminates cabling or nic & we changed or checked already ... mmmm...

What does dhcp & what does dns ? router does dhcp or static? & dns is done at isp ? with netbios doing the local resolving ? or are you using hosts or wins (since I don't know what the other clients are) - now my 'suspect' is master browser issues ...

Have you tried a hard reset on the router?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by confus-ed

So you can network browse but no net - so that completely eliminates cabling or nic & we changed or checked already ... mmmm...

What does dhcp & what does dns ? router does dhcp or static? & dns is done at isp ? with netbios doing the local resolving ? or are you using hosts or wins (since I don't know what the other clients are) - now my 'suspect' is master browser issues ...

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I'm not sure how to check all of that. The router setup page shows DHCP as enabled, so I'm guessing it handles that. The IP associated with DNS seems to be an entirely different one than anything else, that I'm guessing is the ISP.

What would be related to master browser issues? I run both IE and Netscape, and both were affected by the previous bug I was experiencing (frequent time-outs).

Doc, I've tried both unplugging the router and resetting it that way, and holding the reset button for 30 seconds as well.

I shall put it slightly different then ... what clients do we have on our network ? & do we have a 'real' server o/s anywhere ? or a mix say of 9x & xp on a peer to peer basis ?

& since I'm feeling 'educational' today .. here's why master browsers are important whatever browser client you are using ;)..

Quote:

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Microsoft networking relies on a Master Browser and Backup Browsers that maintain a list of network servers that contain shared resources. In this case, the word server refers to any networked computer sharing a resource.

The following diagram illustrates how elections are held to determine which computer will function as the Master Browser.

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http://www.degutis.com/computers/net...relections.gif

The general rule of thumb is newer is more important, with servers always being the most important & the newest version of them as 'boss' - if you don't have a master browser on your subnet that your clients can all see/recognise as boss it won't work, elections happen periodically..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by confus-ed

I shall put it slightly different then ... what clients do we have on our network ? & do we have a 'real' server o/s anywhere ? or a mix say of 9x & xp on a peer to peer basis ?

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One computer runs WinXP, the other two run Windows 98se. I don't think any one computer is reliant on any other for connection, as they are (or were) all able to access the internet even when the others were off.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VoronweTSG

One computer runs WinXP, the other two run Windows 98se. I don't think any one computer is reliant on any other for connection, as they are (or were) all able to access the internet even when the others were off.

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So that's true ... but not ! ;) ... browser elections sort out who's responsible for local resolution on a peer to peer network, which also tells your beast how to link through to dns, if it gets confus-ed then dns will time out as it can't decide where it is !

One machine connects, broadcasts on its subnet looking for master browser, none there - ok so that machine is master browser & it can connect fine no problems it doesn't have to reference any other machine, so along comes machine two, broadcasts finds its not master browser so it 'defers' to machine one, when it needs to resolve locally it knows 'who' to ask, along comes machine 3, braodcasts ... but it thinks its the master browser, oh F. what now ? Which do I resolve to locally ? the 'old' master or the 'new' one ? ( I can refer to browser hierachy to sort out my candidates but if they are both the same then what ? - no mechanism for that !)..

'Browser elections' happen periodically on any network, peer to peer just doesn't have sufficient hierarchy to let it figure out what should happen as no one ever told it, who was 'boss' ... you do that by ammending the master browser key in each machine as appropriate..

The long & the short of it is that for peer to peer, ms networking is 'pants', if you read the KB 'enough' they own up & 'encourage' folks to use domains to get all this 'right' ..

So that's your 'time outs' explained ..

But its still not fixed - & I wrote a novel on browser elections ! :D

So mmm ... what happens if you pull the machine from your network & try it on its own ? (assuming you can set your independant beast up to get dhcp automatically without the router in the way{from the isp}, dns will be the same - @your isp) ..

I'll try connecting my computer directly to the cable box, to see if that'll work.

Also, I did a command line ipconfig /all and got this:

Windows 98 IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . : SQUIRE.wi.rr.com
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . : 24.160.227.33
24.160.227.25
24.94.165.132
Node Type . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
NetBIOS Scope ID. . . . . . :
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . : No
NetBIOS Resolution Uses DNS : No

0 Ethernet adapter :

Description . . . . . . . . : PPP Adapter.
Physical Address. . . . . . : 44-45-53-54-00-00
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . :
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
Primary WINS Server . . . . :
Secondary WINS Server . . . :
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . :
Lease Expires . . . . . . . :

1 Ethernet adapter :

Description . . . . . . . . : PPP Adapter.
Physical Address. . . . . . : 44-45-53-54-00-01
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . :
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255
Primary WINS Server . . . . :
Secondary WINS Server . . . :
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . :
Lease Expires . . . . . . . :

2 Ethernet adapter :

Description . . . . . . . . : D-Link DFE-530TX+ PCI Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . : 00-0D-88-1D-13-76
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.100
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
Primary WINS Server . . . . :
Secondary WINS Server . . . :
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . : 03 19 04 11:03:04 AM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . : 03 25 04 11:03:04 AM

Hmmm, why do you have two dialup adapters installed?
That won't be helping anything at all.

Try this. Go to safe mode and control panel, add/remove programs, windows setup tab. On the communications box, uncheck the entire box and apply.

in the Network icon, check to see how many dialup adapters you have. You should now have none. If you have one or more, go to the system icon, look under network and remove the dialup adapters from there. Re apply the dun update.

Shutdown and reboot.

Start up into normal mode. Into control panel, add/remove programs, windows setup, and into the communication - do not check the whole box, go in and check ONLY dialup networking. Apply and reboot.

Pray.

Alright, I'm now down to only one DUN adapter, and one ethernet card adapter, but still no internet connection :(

I've also attempted to directly connect my computer to the cable modem, and there was no difference, nor was there a change when I tried connecting the computer to the router, but with no other computer connected to the router.

Perhaps a light could be shined on this problem if we focus on the issue that caused me to change the ethernet card? What could have caused the browsers to "lose connection" after a certain amount of time?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by VoronweTSG

Alright, I'm now down to only one DUN adapter, and one ethernet card adapter, but still no internet connection :(

I've also attempted to directly connect my computer to the cable modem, and there was no difference, nor was there a change when I tried connecting the computer to the router, but with no other computer connected to the router.

Perhaps a light could be shined on this problem if we focus on the issue that caused me to change the ethernet card? What could have caused the browsers to "lose connection" after a certain amount of time?

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That was what all the master browser business was about ... that works all alright for a bit, then a new election takes place (every 12 minutes I think -don't ask why - I dunno !) & it breaks ... & you sit & scratch your head a lot & then learn about browser elections & fix it .. not here ! so far anyay ..

Its late here now .. I've been to the pub & I'm confus-ed good & propper now .. I'll have a think & come back in the morning ... ;)

As I have this problem posted on another support forum as well, I was advised to do the a set of pings to see where the problem lie, and my results are posted here too:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ceh383
When the problem occurs you need to find where the trouble is. Open a DOS box and ping from your machine out......


ping 192.168.1.100
ping 192.168.1.1
ping WAN address of router(you need to get this from the routers setup page)
ping 24.160.227.33

you should get a reply from each address.
A host unreachable or request timed out indicate where the problem lies.

Post the results.....

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Pinged all of them. The first three IPs were all pinged with trip times of less than 1ms (except for the first ping of 192.168.1.1, which spiked at 1ms), and the pings of the last number, 24.160.227.33 had times of 31, 14, 12, and 8ms, which I suppose is expected since that's the ISP.

But no loss on any of them, and there's still no internet

Your 'other place' probably wanted you to ping to test connectivity - but they are dumb f.kers ! :D - if you can browse your local network with it, then like I said earlier cable & nic's are ok ;)

What might be a better 'ping test' is :- try a PING using a name (e.g. Ping www.windrivers.com). If the response is "Bad IP address" then this means that DNS is not working.

This is beginning to sound like a newdotnet infestation. Classic symptoms... everything works except the web.

download hijackthis and post the results please.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NooNoo

This is beginning to sound like a newdotnet infestation. Classic symptoms... everything works except the web.

download hijackthis and post the results please.

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Whoo! Ok, partially fixed! I didn't find anything relating to newdotnet, but I was certainly infested with all sorts of adware. Deleted all the files that looked bad, and now my browsers are working! ICQ is still unable to connect, but it looks like I haven't won the war against adware yet, as my browser is being taken over by a giant banner, but this is progress!

Thanks, I'll continue to post progress.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NooNoo

This is beginning to sound like a newdotnet infestation. Classic symptoms... everything works except the web.

download hijackthis and post the results please.

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She's really annoying that NooNoo ;) :devil: ... we should have started by looking for malware :rolleyes:

Anyway if you get stuck post up your log (from HijackThis) .. but unless you want another big mad lesson on things you never relly wanted to know about - then don't ask me :D

I assumed too much again ! - if you have a network its even more important than with a pc that you keep it clear of viruses, trojans & worms -as your own network may be the source of your infection - check your other machines too :)

i just had a similar experience with surfing, i would start out ok then within 15 minutes all pc's would slowly come to a halt. i discovered that if i reset my cable modem all pc's wpould be back in business for about another 15 minutes. Called my cable supplier and the tech that came out discovered low signal at my entrance splitter. repaired connectors and replaced splitter and all is great.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by vikingdog

i just had a similar experience with surfing, i would start out ok then within 15 minutes all pc's would slowly come to a halt. i discovered that if i reset my cable modem all pc's wpould be back in business for about another 15 minutes. Called my cable supplier and the tech that came out discovered low signal at my entrance splitter. repaired connectors and replaced splitter and all is great.

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That sounds like it might be a fix to the time out problem I had before. Hopefully, that's gone now, but I won't be sure until I'm surfing for a while, which I haven't had a chance to do.

Anyway, thanks for ALL your help everyone, especially you Confus-ed, even though you ended up confus-ing me more often then not, you tried helping the most. Thanks! :)

*Voronwe walks away, extremley grateful to be able to type this from his own computer again*

Miised the flipping obvious ! But my persistance allowed somebody else to see it ;) - you are welcome :), even though I was practically useless this time - I have my effective moments - just not on this thread .. :rolleyes: