Wired LAN has stopped working, wireless is OK.

[dano240]

Hi All,

I have a Siemens Gigaset SE587 WLAN dsl which I connect to wirelessly with my Vista laptop and I have an XP Desktop which I connect to via the yellow cable into the back of the PC.

It all worked fine, both could connect to the internet and shared folders/printers but now the XP Desktop has stopped connecting to the local network and the internet.

A few things I've tried:
Turned everything off, waited, turned on again (in all combinations)

On my XP desktop I just went into Network Connections and clicked on Repair in the Local Area Connection Status and it said it was trying to Renew IP Address but after a while said it couldn't do it.

Also I can't access the router setup page from the dektop it just says page not found. (I can still get to it from this laptop OK)

Both computers have recently done Windows Security Updates (may just be a coincidence) and the vista laptop updated itself to IE 8 wheras the XP Desktop is still IE7.

Sorry for the information overload but I thought if I give all the details so far it may be clearer what's going on.

Thanks,
Dave.

[ntluser]

If you connect your laptop directly to your modem via a cable can you connect to the internet?

[Halcyon]

Check to make sure no firewall is blocking Internet connections.

When you have cable plugged in to the ethernet card on the back of thePC is it lit up / flashing?

[SMG]

Try re setting the modem & rebooting, also, check the "My Computer" properties section & ensure your net card is still OK. I did a download a few weeks ago & for some reason, the on board net "card" had disappeared.

[xpod]

Check your cards driver status in Device Manager.Failing that,or any of the above idea`s,sometimes just un-installing your network card/s from the Device Manager then rebooting to re-install them works wonders.

I had someone yesterday who`s wired connection had also suddenly stopped working,although that was 2 or 3 weeks ago but it turned out to be(after checking most of the above) all the BT Internet Crapware she`d installed from the cd that was corrupting the networking.As soon as i removed said Crapware all her networking was back to normal again.

[dano240]

Thanks for all the replies.

SMG: yeah I've tried re-setting and rebooting but still no good.

Xpod: The device manager says the device is working properly.

Halcyon: I do have a firewall but everything was working fine untill a few days ago and I haven't changed any firewall settings. When the cable is plugged into the back of the Desktop the light is indeed on constantly.

Ntluser: if I connect the laptop directly with the cable instead of using wireless I CAN still connect to the internet.
Would this sugest then that the modem is fine and that the problem lies with the Desktop?

Thanks again,
Dave

[Bender]

open a command prompt
type CMD
type ipconfig /all
this will list all the network connections and their current status. does your NIC show an address starting with 169.254? If so, this means that your XP machine it unable to obtain an IP address from the router (which is assumably dishing out addresses via DHCP). being that the Vista machine has managed to obtain one (provided you are not assigning static addresses on the clients), then yes, it would appear to be the XP machine.

in which case, right click on My Computer and select Manage. go to Device Manager and remove (uninstall) the NIC from the list. once this has finished (will take about 3 seconds), rescan for hardware changes via the menu options at the top of the window. this will readd the NIC. try connection to the router again and also see if you are getting an IP in your specified range as opposed to an APIPA address (the 169.254 address)

---------- Post added at 19:51 ---------- Previous post was at 19:49 ----------

EDIT: just seen Xpod had said the same thing. all the same, your response didn't indicate that you actually uninstalled the NIC, rather just checked its status...

[dano240]

Hi all.

Finally had chance to have another look at this.
Tried uninstalling and reinstalling the network card but nothing. I then tried uninstalling the symantec firewall that was on the PC when I got it and that worked! Everything is back as it was.
I don't know why that would have suddenly been a problem when it had all been working fine up until now?

Oh well. Thanks for all your help anyway.

Dave.

[smcaul]

Mainly because Symatec/Norton is the biggest cause of problems to the average home user known to man!!!!! Their stuff should be banned, it is worse then most of the stuff it is supposed to stop!!