Completely. Stumped.

[Psychopete]

I have a machine at my house that I cannot get to connect onto the internet that I use as a development computer. I would just format it, but it is a lot of work to get everything back to the way it was.

It all started with me buying a USB wireless adapter that didn't work under Windows 2000. Well, actually now I know I had it working because,

I put in a PCI wireless adapter and still the same thing.

I hard wired it directly to my router, and no dice.

Here is the kicker..

In each instance I was able to pull an IP address from my router using all means above. The router is fine, I can see my other computer which gets on the internet no problem. I have used the wireless successfully in the past.

So,
I can pull an IP address and get notification that I am connected.
I can tracert to www.google.com and get sane IP addresses.
I can ping www.google.com with next to no packets dropping off.
I can't telnet www.google.com 80

IE and Firefox just time out on the connection to ANY web site.

Host file is clean.
Spybot and Malwarebytes don't pick up any spyware.

But I know the machine had to have been hijacked, or I think I screwed something up trying to get the USB adapter working under 2000. But either way, any traffic to port 80 out of my machine is timing out (screaming proxy huh?, but I can't find where or how this traffic is being redirected).

I wiresharked and didn't find anything useful either.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[tecwizrd]

Do you have other machines on your network? Can these get out to the interweb? I know you said, you wired it to your route. Was that with a new NIC? I am not as versed in Windows as I used to be, but isn't there a way to set proxy info in the network connections tool?

 

[Psychopete]

Yes. I have one upstairs with XP that works great that's wired to the router.

The other computer is in my basement, I can't get traffic out to a server's port 80 it seems. It behaves the same whether it's wired (on-board NIC) or wireless (tried both USB and PCI). I can actually transfer files from one computer to the other. I can ICMP ping websites on the web and get back the right IP. Same with tracert, and I whois-ed the IPs to make sure they were legit to see if a proxy was involved (but I'd guess that's using different ports). But as soon as I try to connect to something on port 80, a connection cannot be established.

I haven't really gotten much further on it, but I will probably mess with it again this weekend. Checked for proxies, hijackthis-ed, all sorts of stuff, can't find anything wrong. One thing I haven't checked is the actual router settings, but I wouldn't have a clue how in the world a rule like that would work itself in there - and that would have be based off of machine name or something as I believe the MAC address changes when you switch NICs IIRC.

Just not sure what all config files to look at, I know I have to be overlooking something. But this area is not really my cup of tea. My problem doesn't seem common at all, I can only find results for simpler connectivity issues when searching. This computer did work online at one time, the only thing I can think of that's different is me trying to install the USB wireless adapter that wasn't compatible with Windows 2000. It was a very "brute force" approach that I took on that, and it did work locally, just no connections to port 80 can be made; both from windows and command line.



Format may be in order, just sucks, the machine probably has the same 2K install for the past 4 or 5 years.

 

[Mark_88]

The same W2k OS for four years?

LOL...I never managed to get more than two out of my installs...but the good news is, if you have enough room, you can partition, reinstall the OS on the other partition and run dual 2k boot...I used to do that all the time because if one messed up, the other would work...then I could sort it out later...

Oh, did you happen to try a direct connection to the internet and by-pass the router? You seem to have connectivity on the command-line level, but the OS is blocked...and do you have MSCONFIG on this machine? You can download it if you don't...try cleaning off the firewalls and virus protection...especially if you're running AVG...

Otherwise...reformatting is not so bad...other than losing tons of good stuff that clutters up your HDD...

 

[AllanD]

I was usually very happy to get four trouble free MONTHS out of a W2K OS install before it crashed & Burned and I had to start over.

My Last XP install still works perfectly, it's inactive, on a HDD sitting in a drawer of a fireproof file cabinet... along with a Vista install...

BTW, IF the computer you are having an issue with is a Dell ANY Dell XP re-installation disc will run, self-activate, and self-authenticate

a Dell XP-sp3 reinstaller disc typically runs about $12 on ebay.

AD

 

[Psychopete]

The same W2k OS for four years?

Heck yes , Usually only would have to go to that extreme if a hard drive failed or I upgraded to a new chip/main board and Windows just couldn't adapt to the new architecture. But I've only had one virus infection running Win98 that forced me to start over, otherwise it has just been hardware. Even my PC at work is still running on the original XP SP1 when it was brand new.

Oh, did you happen to try a direct connection to the internet and by-pass the router? You seem to have connectivity on the command-line level, but the OS is blocked...and do you have MSCONFIG on this machine? You can download it if you don't...try cleaning off the firewalls and virus protection...especially if you're running AVG...

I can't really bypass the router, it's connected to a box via coax cable that resides in my basement - I think it more or less deals with the fiber optic.

I don't have the utilities on it to perform the same tests under windows, but I think it would function the same in windows as the command line; Windows a long time ago still relied on the command line, but the command line is treated differently under the NT kernel in that it's more of a tool than a necessity.

It's funny you mention AVG because I uninstalled it before any of this, I wonder if something watching outbound traffic could have been dorked on the uninstall.

But I think the biggest killer is going to be making sure I am installing what I had on there in the right order. Should have wrote that down...

I was usually very happy to get four trouble free MONTHS out of a W2K OS install before it crashed & Burned and I had to start over.

My Last XP install still works perfectly, it's inactive, on a HDD sitting in a drawer of a fireproof file cabinet... along with a Vista install...

Never had too many problems with 2K SP4, but I haven't asked it to do too much. Support is definitely dying out, that is for sure. XP seems to be pretty dead reliable. Not too much experience with Vista or Win7 though.

 

[Mark_88]

When I was doing tech support for an ISP, more often than not AVG was the cause of non-connectivity...and it may have done something to the OS to block it...

Someone sent me a copy of MSCONFIG that you can install in Win2K and it works just like XP or any MS product...let me know if you want to try it out...I can try sending you the file if you'd like...I know I have it on a USB stick...and it's not very big...

 

[AllanD]

Heck yes , Usually only would have to go to that extreme if a hard drive failed or I upgraded to a new chip/main board and Windows just couldn't adapt to the new architecture. But I've only had one virus infection running Win98 that forced me to start over, otherwise it has just been hardware. Even my PC at work is still running on the original XP SP1 when it was brand new.

Are you SURE you still have "sp1"?

Because XP SHOULD have updated itself through sp1a, sp2 and sp3 via automatic updates...

Then again if I had an sp1 system I'd wipe it and do a clean install of sp3.

AD

 

[Psychopete]

Are you SURE you still have "sp1"?

I am sure it was SP1 when it was freshly installed , but yes, it's all up-to-date on service packs. Even have the nagging "Your computer has not been restarted...." from a update a couple of days ago. Updates are the only reason that thing gets rebooted..

 

[superdave1984]

Any chance your browser is trying to go through a proxy? DNS settings incorrect? DHCP service not running?

 

[Psychopete]

Any chance your browser is trying to go through a proxy? DNS settings incorrect? DHCP service not running?

Unfortunately no.

I can't hit google.com even using telnet from the command line (eg telnet www.google.com 80). I get a "connection cannot be established" error. But what's getting me is that I can ping and do a tracert to google just fine. I get back the right IPs, so I know that it's connected to the internet.

The more and more I've thought about it, the more I am thinking it must be something local to the operating system that's causing it; it just seems like something very low level is preventing outbound traffic to port 80 to any server.

Member on here was extremely nice and offered me an XP disc I can use, so I am just going with that plan - format.

Rep for all (Except Mark_88, I need to pass around more rep)

 

[Mark_88]

The more and more I've thought about it, the more I am thinking it must be something local to the operating system that's causing it; it just seems like something very low level is preventing outbound traffic to port 80 to any server.

Member on here was extremely nice and offered me an XP disc I can use, so I am just going with that plan - format.

Rep for all (Except Mark_88, I need to pass around more rep)

No problem with the Rep...

I had been planning to upgrade my win2K to XP for a while...I actually upgraded my sisters' computer using one of the upgrade disks...it was a full install version for the price of upgrade...worked pretty good...but if you're getting a disk then you're good to go...

 

[Psychopete]

Just an update on this.

I found some AVG references in the registry that were near some internet services that I simply couldn't remove (even with AVG uninstaller), so I am assuming those were the problem. Short of using a linux based registry editor/boot disk to try and remove it (and possibly corrupting things), I formatted the drive and re-installed the operating system. The wireless works pretty good now. Little disappointed that I couldn't resolve it, but I guess you can't win them all.