After installing XP on my PC i came back to Vista and the internet had... issues.

In short - MSN won't sign in, LFS Forum randomly logs me out / gives me loading errors, as do about half the site on the 'net.

I have tried:
OpenDNS
Routers DNS
Static IP
Dynamic IP
Vista's Diagnostic (found nothing, reseting didn't help)
Unplugging/Replugging wire
Restarting PC
Restarting Route.
Ipconfig /release followed by an ipconfig /renew
ipconfig /flushdns
Re-installing Chipset driver
Re-installing LAN drivers
Starting all services (in case i'd disabled one)


It works on another PC plugging into the same hub
TeamSpeak works fine though :X
When i i did the Vista Connection Diagnostic it found nothing, but i asked it to reset my connection and i heard the noise of MSN telling me i had a new email, implying it signed in, but then it signed me out again.

Completely confused :X

In case it matters - using the onboard NIC of an Asus P5K, it's got a P35 chipset. The "Attensic Ethernet Utility" tells me i pass the "SRAM, Register, Link & Lookpback" tests, which is all it has.

HALP!

Hmmm, while i was pinging Google i get 5 "Request timed out" and 400 Bad Request on a page i was loading :X

Hmm, with that many problems it almost sounds like the data is getting corrupted? I see you restarted your router but how about any modem, if separate that is.

One thing I would do to see if its a hardware or a software problem is to get something like a BartPE disc or perhaps a Linux LiveCD to see if other software behaves the same. If so, its hardware, else software.

Just booted into an nLite'd copy of XP which was working before - same thing.

Hardware fault then :X

Check if the network card drivers in vista are behaving right. you can find if it is working right or not in device manager>(your network card)> and it will show if its working right in its properties and also check your ip and dns settings both on the vista network configuration and the router. Hope that helps.

EDIT: do the same thing with XP as well

Quote from anik360 :

Check if the network card drivers in vista are behaving right. you can find if it is working right or not in device manager>(your network card)> and it will show if its working right in its properties and also check your ip and dns settings both on the vista network configuration and the router. Hope that helps.

EDIT: do the same thing with XP as well

I fail to see why i'd have ANY internet if that was the problem?

Currently rendering in Xp, but i'm about to find out if my mobo has a second LAN port - i'm sure it does...

Tried 2 browsers, and two whole OS's and i get the same problem, i've tested the cable and all is well so it's time to grab a new NIC to test...

EDIT - I get this error every now and again loading sites i KNOW work:

Bad Request%0re0AYour200brows0t sent a request that this d.rver%2ueould.aot ufierstand.
Request header field is missing ':' separator.

2219; phpAds_geoInfo=geoip

Bump....?

I'm going to try to grab an NIC at school tomorrow - if that fails... :X

for basic diagnostic, use nslookup, tracert and ping.
To rule out dns problems, have nslookup resolve www.google.com to an address and then try pinging the address, both numeric and alphabetic. When the problem comes again, do the same thing.
Again, TCPView can give you some hints. Wireshark is optimal to understand if and where there's a trouble.
Check points of passage one at a time. When you have the problem, does the router respond? Does the gateway assigned to the router respond? Does an external host respond? Try to identify correctly the point of failure first.
Anyway, if you use ping as a basic diag instrument, remember that not all hosts respond to ping or ICMP messages in general.
Try also pingplotter, it could help.

Ermmm..... Are you overclocking anything ?

Seriously though, This is way over my head and I can't really give too much technical expertise, but, i've had similar-ish problems recently.

a) Most times it's simply a problem with BT being hopelessly crap at everything they do.
b) A problem i was having a few weeks ago, changing over to a DNS proxy server sorted it out.
c) A few months back i had a problem that sounds very similar to yours. I never managed to find out the cause, but a reformat sorted it all out.

Another probably pointless point, but have you tried re-setting your router ? and checking for nasties in your software, virus/trojans etc ?

Quote from Jakg :

I'm going to try to grab an NIC at school tomorrow - if that fails... :X

Possibly a duff hub port (for the love of deity-of-your-choice, don't use a bloodly hub, and get a decent switch), although it's very unlikely a single port to go screwy in a bank.

Based on the limited information you've given, my first guess would be that you've probably got a broken port on your PC tbh, probably from yanking the cable or something similar. Either way, accidents can happen. If that doesn't help then it's time to dive into a packet sniffer and see whats going on.

My second guess wouldn't be a guess. I'd be interested in seeing if I get extreme packet loss or data corruption internally to other computers on the local network.

Quote from Mazz4200 :

a) Most times it's simply a problem with BT being hopelessly crap at everything they do.
b) A problem i was having a few weeks ago, changing over to a DNS proxy server sorted it out.
c) A few months back i had a problem that sounds very similar to yours. I never managed to find out the cause, but a reformat sorted it all out.

Another probably pointless point, but have you tried re-setting your router ? and checking for nasties in your software, virus/trojans etc ?

a. It's on no other PC in the house.
B. Tried OpenDNS and my routers DNS
C. I put an nLited copy of XP on here 2-3 days ago, that's only ever been to LFS Forum and overclock.net so that's clean

Quote from the_angry_angel :

Possibly a duff hub port (for the love of deity-of-your-choice, don't use a bloodly hub, and get a decent switch), although it's very unlikely a single port to go screwy in a bank.

Based on the limited information you've given, my first guess would be that you've probably got a broken port on your PC tbh, probably from yanking the cable or something similar. Either way, accidents can happen. If that doesn't help then it's time to dive into a packet sniffer and see whats going on.

My second guess wouldn't be a guess. I'd be interested in seeing if I get extreme packet loss or data corruption internally to other computers on the local network.

I've dropped a second PC in here on the end of this cable and it's working fine on the internet BUT i haven't put Messenger on it, and just like my PC if i do a ping Google.com -t every now and again i get a timeout. Not sure if this is important? I've left it (the second PC) pinging the home hub, getting 0 packet loss and pings from 1 to <1

I've got a wireless router under my desk, i'm gonna plug that in via ethernet and then use a wireless card to try it simply because i can't find an NIC that works (I'm on Vista x64 here, and the drivers for the sh*t here contains 2 folders - 98 and NT :P)

EDIT - WTF.

Ok, so this second PC is now timing out ocassionly when pinging 192.168.1.254 (the home hub).

I had a Cable Tester in here and all of the wires worked, but i only tested it for about 30 seconds.

This is bloody wierd.

Quote from Jakg :

Ok, so this second PC is now timing out ocassionly when pinging 192.168.1.254 (the home hub).

I had a Cable Tester in here and all of the wires worked, but i only tested it for about 30 seconds.

This is bloody wierd.

Hubs don't have IP addresses. Maybe you're not using the correct term.

A simple cable tester doesn't help, really. I doubt it's a cable problem, but unless you use a Time Domain Reflectometer you're not going to really see if the cables are fit for network traffic or not.

Whatever the network appliance having IP address 192.168.1.254 is, it shouldn't time out with pings unless there's a really heavy network traffic, or a nic jamming it (or, again, if it's faulty): it happened to me, for instance, when I used a single STP-FTP on a 3com Superstack 3300: all the network traffic slowed down to a crawl, even if all the other UTP cables were fine. The cable tester didn't complain about the cable.

I doubt you have a problem with cables, but if you test with pings some network appliance ensure you only have the testing pc connected. The simpler things are, the faster you'll recognise the faulty equipment. So, once you know something is good, write it off: experiment combinations later.

Also try to meter your network , you may have a nic generating extremely high traffic.

Quote from Albieg :

Hubs don't have IP addresses. Maybe you're not using the correct term.

A "home hub" is a BT home router. It's called a hub because the dorks at BT are useless.

So the BT dorks aren't using the correct term

Quote from Albieg :

Hubs don't have IP addresses. Maybe you're not using the correct term.

It's called the "Home Hub" but it's a Router.

I did a cable test (a basic one - sends *something* down the wire and make sure each of the wires inside responds) using a handy peice of hardware i have simply because i have some dodgy wiring in my house (eeep)

Quote from Albieg :

Also try to meter your network , you may have a nic generating extremely high traffic.

My network consists of a PC running 400 different OS's (Dad's PC :X) which connects off a hub, another PC that's never turned on, my Mum's PC (Which barely downloads anything) and my PC.

The fact that the Internet works on one PC, but that both do weird things when pinging stuff makes me think that between the hub (and i mean hub - my Dad's daisychained the home hub-pos to 2 hubs) and the cable in my room something's gone fubar'ed.

You should start by testing with only one machine plugged into the HomeHub.

It could be that one of the other machines has picked up some sort of nasty that is overloading your network with portscans and the like.

Oh god, time to approach my Dad and ask him if his PC is the problem :X

Think it's probably a better idea just to turn his PC off :P

Also, whenever i send stuff to the printer on my machine i get garbled crap, which i can only assume is due to getting corruption over the network.

I had some silly Internetstuff last year after we changed the isp and got new modem and stuff.

3 PCs: A, B , C
- Each of them alone worked without any prolem
- A + C, B + C, no problem
- A + B, DSL signal killed after 10 secs...

After a few testing it turned out to be A's monitor which was causing the trouble... (within a reach of 10 meters).

Have you tried to lower the speed (to 10Mbps)? A friend of mine had some problems that after a reinstall his Internet(connection) was really slow and couldn't even reach the router (always timed out)...

Here's an idea that just popped into my head.

In the past I have had issues because of the windows default MTU value.
IIRC this value is 1500, but the UK ADSL network prefers a lower value of 1458 or 1430.

You could be seeing excess packet fragmentation if your MTU is set too high.

Use DrTCP to change it. Google yourself a link...I'm in a lazy mood atm .

It depends on the type of connection, really. PPPoE needs an MTU of 1492 (standard value), while PPPoA 1500. Packet fragmentation issues generally lead to performance decrease, but in most cases this decrease can be barely noticeable since network appliances (including nics or OSes handling nics) generally do a good job at reassembling packets. For sure it's some added strain, however, that can be easily monitored with Wireshark (which does a good job at identifying packet fragmentation and reassembly).

If the BT Home Hub is half a serious router, it should give the possibility of adjusting MTU too. Generally this would be needed only to lower it down to 1492 if PPPoE is used, or if - for whatever reason - the provider uses non-standard values. In Italy Tele+ needs some adjusting of this sort for some business users since they use a traffic shaping technique that needs lower MTU values.

Quote from Bean0 :

In the past I have had issues because of the windows default MTU value.

certainly not the problem if his printer doesnt work
plus hes got a router so the windows mtu value shouldnt mean jack

Quote from three_jump :

Have you tried to lower the speed (to 10Mbps)?

I'm only on a 6.5 mbit connection...

Quote from Albieg :

If the BT Home Hub is half a serious router, it should give the possibility of adjusting MTU too.

My Dad's a n00b and doesn't know the admin pass for the router because he bought it off eBay

Quote from Jakg :

My Dad's a n00b and doesn't know the admin pass for the router because he bought it off eBay

Reset the router to factory settings and use the default username and password.....

Yea, and how do you propose to do that with no reset button?

I've tried it, only thing i could do is flash the thing...