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edraynie
November 15th, 2004, 05:55 PM
I have been reading through the forum and have found some related topics, but no resolution that fit my situation.

I am a technician for a rural telephone cooperative that provides DSL service. I have been seeing a recurring problem at numerous DSL installations and so far, I have not been able to identify a solution.

Here is one example occurance. I arrived at a clients home where the complaint was no access to the Internet after several weeks of normal operation. In this instance, the client is using a Toshiba laptop. It is connected via a 10/100 internal Ethernet adapter to the Ethernet port on the Westel DSL modem. All LED's appear normal (flashing on PC FE port and DSL FE port, solid on DSL and POWER on modem. We see 'page cannot be displayed' on IE, and 'pop server cannot be reached' on Outlook Express. We use static IP addresses, so I check the IP configuration and everything is set correctly. I try rebooting both the computer and the DSL modem but it doesn't help. I try 'disabling' and then 'enabling' the DSL Ethernet interface, no good. I try 'repairing' the DSL Ethernet interface, no good.

Then, I take the Ethernet cable from the clients Toshiba laptop and plug it into my Dell laptop. After setting the IP config, it works like a charm. I surf and check mail for almost an hour with no failures. As soon as I put the Ethernet cable back on the clients laptop, it fails.

The client also has a Compaq Desktop with an Ethernet card, so I but the DSL Ethernet connection on the Compaq. Again, I set the IP config and it works like a charm. Try to move it back to the Toshiba and it fails. I left it on the Compaq and now am searching for a clue.

As I said before, I've seen this condition a few times and I'd love to get to the bottom of it. Symptoms seem to clearly point to the (in this case) Toshiba laptop. But invariably, the 'failing' PC's work for a period of weeks before they fail. The PC has been scanned for virus' with Norton, and adware with Spybot. What tools can I use on the PC in the failed state to help isolate the cause?


Any ideas? :dizzy:

mrbledso
November 23rd, 2004, 09:30 PM
Have you tried to do a winsock repair.

For Windows 2000/XP try this tool. http://www.spychecker.com/program/winsockxpfix.html

For Windows 98/98SE/ME try this tool.
http://www.bu.edu/pcsc/internetaccess/winsock2fix.html

I have had similar issues on customer machines and this solved the problem.

Good Luck

bAdWaYz
November 23rd, 2004, 10:13 PM
I'm guessing that you can't ping anything either? Like go to a command promt and try to ping yahoo.com also try and ping some ip address. If you can't load pages connect to pop3 or ping the outside then I'd say the connection isn't getting out at all. Try simple things first..make sure the firewall settings aren't keeping you from connecting. Sometimes if you turn the firewall off just for a sec the connection will pop right up, then you turn it back on and no connection. Thus meaning you should tweak the settings. Also make sure the cables are all connected well then make sure the eathernet card isn't pooched. Trying the simple things first can sometimes be the fix.