Ask the Network Guy!

I had the opportunity to work on this computer system myself, and I can say that this issue stumped me for a little while.  When troubleshooting network and connectivity issues here are seven common steps:

1. Verify that you have a valid IP address
2. Update your NIC card drivers
3. Ping the NIC card loopback
4. Ping the Default Gateway
5. Ping an IP address on your own network
6. Ping an external IP address
7. Ping a web site name.

Here is the long and short of this issue.  My client had installed a new NIC card from Netgear.  He then upgraded his computer from Windows 2000 to XP Pro Service Pack 2; after his upgrade he was not able to connect to the Internet.  One would think that the Windows Service Pack 2 was causing an issue.  Service Pack 2 would is suspect because it has caused similar issues on many people’s computer systems.  Here are the steps that I performed; most steps are via the command window.  The command window is a great tool for trouble-shooting issues.  Assume after each command given below that I pressed the <ENTER> key

• I verified that I had an IP address. I typed in ipconfig, then press enter.  I had an IP address of 192.168.1.100.  I then did an ipconfig /all to verify that the NIC card had DNS server information.  The NIC card had appropriate DNS servers in the list.  Web browser could not open the web page.
• I then updated the NIC card drivers, by downloading the latest drivers from the Netgear web site. Still no luck accessing the Internet

                                                               i.      BTW, I know that there was no issue between the router and the ISP because I connected my laptop to the router (Linksys) and was using my laptop to access the Internet.  I used my laptop to download the drivers from Netgear, and used my USB memory stick to transfer the files to the computer that was having issues.

Time now for a little more basic trouble-shooting step:
 

·        To verify that TCP/IP services were bound to the NIC card ok, I pinged the loopback IP address.  127.0.0.1 Is the loopback IP address of all NIC cards.  Loopback ping was successful.  So the NIC card is functioning properly.

·        I then pinged the Default Gateway, ping 192.168.1.1, this worked ok.  I was getting a response from the router.

·        I then pinged my laptop since it was on the network.  “ping 192.168.1.101”.  good I have a response from the laptop.

·        So now I tried to ping an IP address outside of my network.  So I choose a DNS server “ping 4.2.2.2” a well known Verizon DNS server’s IP address.  I get a response, but still cannot open Internet Explorer and access a web site.

·        I then tried pinging a web address.  So I pinged www.yahoo.com and was able to get a ping response back from yahoo.  I am still unable to connect to the Internet via Internet Explorer.  I keep getting the “Page Cannot be Displayed” error message.  
 

So I am baffled at this point as to what is going on with this computer, NIC card and Internet connection.  I can ping outside of the home network.  I am getting a response from external web addresses such as yahoo.com, but I am not able to open a web page via Internet Explorer.  I have even gone so far as to lower the security within the settings for Internet Explorer, still no success.

I then begin to look into the OS, again I am running Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 2.  Because this was a new install of the OS, and no data was going to be lost if I formatted the drive, I re-formatted the drive and installed Windows XP with no Service pack.  I then tried going to the Internet and it worked.  Oppps, now it does not.  This is strange, it works once or twice but then stops working all together; interesting evidence.

I then format the drive again and install Windows 2000, and try opening a web browser.  Ok, this works just fine.  I am on the Internet just fine.  So I being to think that the issue is the driver for Windows XP.  This can produce these results.  Bad drivers for hardware can cause all kinds of strange errors.  But then all of a sudden I once again could not get out to the Internet via Internet Explorer.  Now this is really strange, Windows 2000 Pro, and I cannot get to the Internet, again I can ping www.yahoo.com and receive a ping response.

So I then deicide that perhaps I should just change out the NIC card, so I change out the NIC card with a 3com 3c905 card, and I am can now connect to yahoo.com via Internet Explorer.  So I then reinstall Windows XP Service Pack 2 and use the 3com NIC card, and again I can access the Internet.

There are several items to gleam from this story:

• Standard NIC card trouble-shooting does not always show a hardware issue.  For the loopback ping and the ping to yahoo.com should not have worked.
• Keep your Driver CD’s and disks.  Unfortunately we did not have the original drivers that came with this NIC card and had to download drivers from the manufacture’s web site.  Although the original drivers were not available to me, so I could not verify if they worked or not, I have seen updated drivers have issues.  So keep your original disks or driver CD’s
• On the other hand also be prepared to download drivers from the Internet.
• I could have changed out the NIC card a lot earlier, and I knew that might fix the issue very quickly.  Sometime one has to experiment.  I would not advise reinstalling your Operating System over and over again, or for that matter reinstalling older operating systems.  I did so because I wanted to experiment and wanted to try some different things.