Help! Modem IP Problem 169. cannot connect to internet

[alienpanda]

Hi Everyone

I'm a virgin media customer - non wireless. I have been running my PC via STB broadband for 4 to 5 years with absolutely no problem. About a month ago an engineer fitted a new modem as they said they dont support STB broadband anymore and I have to upgrade to a modem. At first it didnt work as they had trouble registering it, that took a week and after many calls - it finally worked. All has been well until a week ago, the PC will now not connect to the internet. It assigns itself a 169 IP address and says the connection is limited and local only. I have plugged my laptop to the modem and that connects fine, no problem connecting and yet the PC cannot connect??

Can anyone help me??

Thanks

[deathtrap3000]

Its one device at a time. You need to reset the modem before it will let you use something other than your laptop.

Id recommend getting a router so you dont have to keep resetting every time you want to connect a new device.

[alienpanda]

hi, thats the thing. It was only ever connected to the PC, and worked fine, but then all of a sudden its throwing back the 169. ip address. Thats when I tried the laptop to see if that could connect and and that worked fine, so then I did all the reset steps again but still the PC wont seem to connect...

its very frustrating knowing that it was working fine the other day, and works fine on the laptop....

Is there anyway I can fix it??

[moaningmags]

If you disconnect the coaxial cable from the modem, do you get a 192.168.100.XX ip address?

If so, it more than likely you and someone else have the same network card MAC address and the network will only assign an ip address to one MAC address.

If you still get a 169ip with the coaxial cable out then this points to a PC issue.
In XP, go to Start > Run > cmd > ok > black screen type netsh winsock reset - press enter, you should get a message saying successful and to restart the computer.

In Vista, Start > All Programs > Accessories > right click Command Prompt select Run As Administrator, click Continue > black screen type netsh winsock reset - press enter, again should get a message saying successful and to restart the computer.

Reboot comp in either XP or Vista and see if you then get an IP address.

[alienpanda]

Hi moaningmags - thanks for the response, however, I tried witht the coax out - still a 169. IP address

Then I tried the steps you mentioned at the command propmt, then robooted. Still no difference??

Can you suggest anything else?

Is there a Way I can find out what IP address it uses when I connect the laptop, and somehow manually put that in??

Appreciate any help!

[moaningmags]

Yes you can find out the ip assigned to the laptop but it won't help if the computer is getting a 169 ip address.
The IP address assigned to the laptop is given only to the laptop, putting those ip settings into the computer won't let it go online.

When you took the coax out did you tell Windows to repair the connection?
If so, and still a 169 you're looking at possibly re-installing your network card drivers or perhaps restoring your computer to a time when it did work. It could have been a Windows Update gone wrong.

[alienpanda]

Hi, I called VM TS today, and they advised this, we did the coax hokey cokey (in out in out lol) and that didnt work, and then we tried the system restore, but the earliest date it was giving us was 15/11 so we tried that, and that still didnt work!

Any other suggestions..?!?

[bonzoe]

Only seems to leave a faulty network card, get a new one, cost about £10.

Another thought, did you use the same network cable on the laptop? If not, try that cable.

[50420]

just out of curiosity, has the 169 ip address been manually specified in the tcp/ip settings box? it may not have been done by yourself, i've seen malware/viral infections cause this in the past.

maybe if this is the case, changing it back to 'auto' would resolve the problem ?