XP Networking Help Needed

"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury) 09/21/2015 at 03:35 • Filed to: None

0

23

I’m trying to help a friend get his computer back on the Internet and am having a hell of a time making it work and could use a little help troubleshooting the problem.

The computer is a generic Core2Duo machine running XP and connects wirelessly with permission to the next door neighbor’s (another friend) Linksys router via the guest account. The issue is that the computer gets an IP address from the router, but can’t get out to the Internet. Any attempt to go to a web page results in a completely blank screen. In Firefox, refreshing the screen results in a little spinning of the activity icon, usually about 2-3 seconds and then it stops, blank screen, no error message. That seems like too little time for it to be timing out, especially without an error message.

I can connect to and ping the router just fine. I get an IP address from the router, so I’m getting that far. But I cannot ping or connect to anything on the Internet. I know the router and Internet connection are working just fine because I can get to the Internet on my Mac and XP notebooks using the same exact guest account.

Previously, when you would launch a browser, you’d get a prompt from the router to enter the guest password, but as mentioned earlier the screen just stays blank after a few seconds of trying to connect - no error message or login prompt.

The computer was riddled with viruses and malware, and I think I’ve cleaned out most of that stuff; Malwarebytes did it’s thing, and Microsoft Security Essentials isn’t picking up any viruses any more. I’d like to put another AV software package on there, like Avast, but the Internet problem is preventing me from downloading anything.

I know XP is old and unsupported and that I should just update, but that’s not currently a viable option. My friend is on disability and doesn’t have much money, and I’m still unemployed and broke. Yes, we’re looking for an inexpensive way to install Windows 7, but first we’ll need to upgrade from the meager 1GB of RAM that’s currently installed. This will all happen, eventually, but at the current time there is no reason we shouldn’t be able to get online. It worked before, so it should work again.

So far I’ve updated the driver on the wireless card, reset the TCP/IP stack, run Microsoft’s automated little connection repair utility, installed Chrome (thinking Firefox was corrupt/damaged) and probably half a dozen other little tweaks that I can’t remember at the moment. What am I missing? What have I forgotten to do?

For your help, please have some sweet E24s.

911e46z06 > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 09/21/2015 at 03:42

1

Did you try yelling at it?

pip bip - choose Corrour > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 09/21/2015 at 03:48

0

WANT!!!!

KatzManDu > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 09/21/2015 at 03:56

1

I bet it’s getting a bogus DNS server from the DHCP Server on the Linksys Router.

Manually set the DNS in the TCP/IP settings to 8.8.8.8 and it may start working again.

JustWaitingForAMate > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 09/21/2015 at 03:58

1

Have you tried manually setting an IP address and DNS on the PC and seeing if that works instead of using the guest account?

Also:

davedave1111 > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 09/21/2015 at 04:51

0

If it was malwared, check for proxy servers, hosts-file redirects, and so-on.

Incidentally, I’m really not a fan of Avast - but I haven’t used it in years. Has it improved at all? I’d recommend Panda Cloud AV as far as free ones go at the moment. You ought to be able to install AV in offline mode, anyway.

MrFurzzy > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 09/21/2015 at 08:10

0

Do they need a computer for more than browsing the Internet? If that’s all they need, a chromebook would probably work well. You could probably get an older one off Craigslist for a lot less than a computer upgrade.

JGrabowMSt > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 09/21/2015 at 08:42

0

Have you attempted to clear the cache of the computer? Also, you may want to just go ahead and fully reset the TCP/IP networking stack of Windows because it can go wonky and just stop working.

Also, if your issue is the the guest network, it’s possible there’s a setting on the router that’s preventing the guest network from passing through to the internet.

MSE is what I would keep on their for anti-virus. If you’ve cleaned up most of it and MSE isn’t saying there’s a problem, your problem lies elsewhere. I would take the machine to your place or something where you can thoroughly dig into it without worrying about wifi. There’s a laundry list of things to do that would fix it, and I could give you more tips or even help by connecting remotely if you can get it working at your place either wired or wireless. If you’d like more help, shoot me an email (username@gmail) and I can give you more pointers.

Slant6 > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 09/21/2015 at 08:57

0

Try this.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > JGrabowMSt 09/21/2015 at 09:15

0

Caches were cleaned via CCleaner. TCP/IP stack reset via some ‘netsh’ commands that I can’t recall at the moment.

Guest network is fine. My MacBook and HP XP notebook connect to the Internet just fine through the same guest account.

You can reach me at bandley3@gmail.com

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > JustWaitingForAMate 09/21/2015 at 09:20

0

I haven’t tried manual IP yet, although the address, gateway and DNS reported via ipconfig matched what was expected and similar to what was assigned via DHCP on my computers on the same guest account.

And yeah, lots of restarts. Lots and lots of them.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > KatzManDu 09/21/2015 at 09:23

0

Since my two notebooks connected to the Internet just fine through the same guest account, I’ll have to discount this possibility. I know that the owner of the router has different DNS servers configured on this router, other than what is provided by his ISP, and those are the servers that are showing up on this local machine when the IP is assigned via DHCP.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > davedave1111 09/21/2015 at 09:29

1

I did check for proxy servers and there weren’t any. I forgot to check the hosts file, and now that I am reminded of this I think that is a very good place to check. When Firefox started I could see that, despite what I was putting in as a destination, the browser was being redirected to a number of sites that seemed to be malware/adware-related. I don’t recall if this was happening in Chrome. I did see a bunch of questionable extensions in Firefox, but those were all deleted or disabled.

Avast has served me well on a number of machines, but I’m always open to suggestions for other good free AV software. A cheap Dell I picked up came with AVG and I’ve been sticking with it on that particular box despite the periodic crashes.

KatzManDu > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 09/21/2015 at 09:30

0

Roger; then it is likely a faux-proxy by some malware that was installed that is buried in the registry.

Did you clean it with a bootable BitDefender CD? That’s always my go-to.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > 911e46z06 09/21/2015 at 09:31

0

Given that it was late and there were neighbors below and to the side I thought it best to avoid this technique. In addition, there isn’t a microphone, so I don’t think it would have heard me...

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Slant6 09/21/2015 at 09:35

0

This is more my style.

This is next.

An old friend of mine had a habit of punching out his computers when he was pissed off at his wife; I guess it was a better option than punching her out, and probably a little less expensive. On many occasions he came over to my place with a box of parts and a new computer, seeking help with data recovery.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > MrFurzzy 09/21/2015 at 09:38

0

I’m not sure all of the uses he has for the computer, but I know he has a large music library that he manages with it. I haven’t had enough experience with Chromebooks to know if it would be good at that task.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > KatzManDu 09/21/2015 at 09:42

0

I’ll have to download that one and give it a try.

Any other recommendations for downloadable discs full of utilities that might be able to help in this situation? Back in the day I’d use Hiren’s, but that was a loooong time ago and I’m sure that have been better utility collections made in the ensuing years.

KatzManDu > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 09/21/2015 at 10:36

0

Set up an alternate browser (TOR? Firefox?) and test connections that way to make sure it isn’t using some kind of hidden/system proxy embedded in the Registry.

davedave1111 > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 09/21/2015 at 11:01

0

The best free protection is the MS one, but annoyingly you can’t get it for XP anymore. I’ve used Panda for a while, put it on for a few people who are dumb enough to click ‘yes’ to every prompt they get on the internet, and it seems to do a decent job keeping things cleanish.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > davedave1111 09/21/2015 at 11:08

0

The computer does have Microsoft Security Essentials installed - is that the stuff to which you refer? I know it gets updated because I get prompts on my XP machines to update it.

Most of the problem I’m dealing with is all user-related. I’ll have to teach him to be very wary of every prompt that pops up offering free software to ‘help’ him. I’ll also need to find a way to prevent him from potentially engaging in piracy for fear of getting his neighbor’s Internet connection disabled.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > KatzManDu 09/21/2015 at 11:12

0

Firefox was his main browser; IE doesn’t start. There were a number of highly-questionable extensions installed that I deleted or disabled. I did download an offline-install version of Chrome, but the problem remains so I’m going to say that it’s not in the browser.

davedave1111 > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 09/21/2015 at 11:23

0

Yeah, MSE. You’d know better than me if they’re still issuing updates, but they’re not offering it for download anymore.

The user training you’re talking about is the same kind of thing I was saying PAV seems pretty good at dealing with.

For the network, do you have access to set up a secondary/guest network for your friend’s use? Then you can block bittorrent traffic as needed.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > davedave1111 09/21/2015 at 12:06

0

I can get access to the router, so I can tailor the protocols and ports allowed to pass through on the guest account. I just need to do a little research and see what items I need to block.

It looks like you can’t get MSE for XP directly from Microsoft, but other sites appear to have it ( http://ccm.net/download/downl… for example). Oldversion.com only has the really old stuff that won’t run on XP. I’d still run this through another virus checker first before installing it, but chances are it’s OK.