[Curious D]

A very strange thing is happening on my laptop. I am currently using Firefox on a HP TC4200 running Windows XP Tablet Edition with Antivir, Lavasoft Adaware, Ewido anti-spyware, Notebook Hardware Control, and Zonealarm (with Windows Firewall off).

A few weeks ago, I lost the ability to reach Google.com on my laptop (connected wirelessly to a Belkin MIMO router). At first, I thought it was a Firefox problem, but I found out I can't reach Google by IE either. I knew it wasn't the programs I installed since my desktop has all the same programs my laptop has (for the most part). At the suggestion of another user on another forum, I looked to see if my hosts file were hijacked and apparently, it was not. I am able to reach Google using the numerical address (http://216.239.39.104), but not by typing in "www.google.com". To further add confusion, my laptop is able to connect to Google in the usual way and through Firefox's search bar at my sister's home which has the same ISP as my home. Thus, it seems to me that the laptop isn't the problem.

I tried to reset the router and nothing seems to change. I know it isn't my ISP since I am able to connect to Google through the desktop. Even though the router is connected to the desktop, I suspect the wireless portion of the router to be the culprit. I do not have any filters set up and I haven't made any modifications to the router's settings. I don't understand why I have a selective block on Google on my wireless laptop only at home. No other search engine appears to be affected.

Does anyone have any thoughts to this really weird problem? I have posted this on three other forums, but I haven't had an answer. I really like using the search bar on Firefox and would hate to lose that functionality.

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i cannot even begin to say that i've got a sollution for you (or even an idea why this is happening) so...please don't be sad if i can't fix this but...

is google the ONLY site that doesn't work on the laptop?

if you do start > run > ipconfig /all
on both the LT and Desktop...do you get the same results? (except for the machine's ip address) or are there differences?

if you do (on the laptop) start > run > cmd > ping www.google.com what happens?
same on the desktop

how about start > run > cmd > tracert www.google.com
both LT and DT

[dsenette]

i cannot even begin to say that i've got a sollution for you (or even an idea why this is happening) so...please don't be sad if i can't fix this but...

is google the ONLY site that doesn't work on the laptop?

if you do start > run > ipconfig /all
on both the LT and Desktop...do you get the same results? (except for the machine's ip address) or are there differences?

if you do (on the laptop) start > run > cmd > ping www.google.com what happens?
same on the desktop

how about start > run > cmd > tracert www.google.com
both LT and DT

[Curious D]

Thanks for the reply.

The cmd test yielded the following:

For ipconfig /all - settings outside of the ip address and node type were the same.

For ping www.google.com - the laptop lost all 4 pings. Oddly enough, pinging www.yahoo.com and www.msn.com also lost all four signals, but I am able to type these addresses into the address bar on the browser and obtain the websites. Further, I can ping other sites such as www.ask.com and www.hotmail.com.

For tracert www.google.com - the desktop had no problems. The laptop timed out on over half of the signals sent out. The numerical address of Google was different for both computers, but when I typed in the numerical address found on my desktop, it also timed out.

I hope this information leads to the source of the problem. Thanks for your help.

[dsenette]

the ip address of google will change...they have a few...


do start > run > cmd > ipconfig /flushdns
then
start > run > cmd > ipconfig /registerdns

then repeat the above tests

[Curious D]

After flushing DNS and registering DNS, the results were unfortunately the same as before.

[Curious D]

I found out what the cause of the problem was. Apparently, my laptop or router is not doing too well with the AES encryption setting I had. I had my security on WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK AES for my Belkin F5D9320-4 router. Webpages were downloading slowly and this "www.google.com" problem then came up. I switched the encryption back down to TKIP and now it is working just fine. I don't understand why this suddenly came about since I changed security settings months ago. I have the latest drivers for my computer which is supposed to support AES encryption. While I'll set my security back to TKIP, does anyone know why this problem happened and whether I can fix the initial problem I had so that I can stay with AES encryption? Thanks for your help.

Edited by Curious D, 25 July 2006 - 11:08 PM.

[Curious D]

After running into more problems with my set up, I decided to eliminate Zonealarm and try Kerio. Now my AES encryption works for the wireless and the problems I had with Firefox have ceased. It was Zonealarm for some reason.