[kloiga]

Hi,

A couple of months ago I had a virus (Win32/FakeSysdef) that was removed with the help of a forum expert elsewhere. The virus caused me to lose internet connectivity early, and although the virus has been eliminated, the connectivity problem remains. I have XP SP3 and use a Netgear G54 wireless adapter connected to an AT&T 2wire router using WEP. Here are symptoms and what I remember trying:

- Netgear's software shows that I'm connected to my network, but will not resolve a DNS address.
- Windows' wireless status shows limited or no connectivity.
- I disabled and re-enabled the wireless adapter - no change.
- I re-installed the Netgear drivers - no change.
- I replaced the AT&T router - no change.
- All other computers can connect to the router.
- I can ping myself, but cannot ping anything else in the network.

Thank you in advance for any help you might be able to give me!

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Does it work if you connect a Ethernet cable?

Click on Start then Run and paste the following into the Run box, exactly as shown, including double quotes:

cmd /c "ipconfig /all > postme.txt & ping yahoo.com >> postme.txt & notepad postme.txt & del postme.txt"

and press ENTER.

A file will open in Notepad. Please copy and paste the contents here. Close the Notepad window and the file will be deleted and the Command Prompt window will also close.

If you don't have a Run selection off the Start menu, see here: Enable Run Command on Windows 7 or Vista Start Menu

[Ztruker]

Does it work if you connect a Ethernet cable?

Click on Start then Run and paste the following into the Run box, exactly as shown, including double quotes:

cmd /c "ipconfig /all > postme.txt & ping yahoo.com >> postme.txt & notepad postme.txt & del postme.txt"

and press ENTER.

A file will open in Notepad. Please copy and paste the contents here. Close the Notepad window and the file will be deleted and the Command Prompt window will also close.

If you don't have a Run selection off the Start menu, see here: Enable Run Command on Windows 7 or Vista Start Menu

[kloiga]

Hey Ztruker, thanks for the reply.

I do not have access to ethernet so cannot try a cable (we're on phone service DSL.) Also, since I have no connectivity on that computer, there will be no straight copy/paste, but I will use a jump drive to get the postme.txt to my laptop so I can post here.

Here is postme.txt:

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : pickle
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Wireless:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NETGEAR WG111v3 Wireless-G USB Adapter #4
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : E0-91-F5-24-4A-E8
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration IP Address. . . : 169.254.132.197
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
Ping request could not find host yahoo.com. Please check the name and try again.

[Ztruker]

There should be an Ethernet port in 2-Wire modem that you can connect to your computer via a Ethernet cable. I know this is not how you want to use the computer, I just wanted to see if this was strictly a wireless problem or a more generic networking problem.

The Autoconfiguration IP Address of 169.254.132.197 says you are not connecting to the modem so XP gives you a default IP address.

For these commands, click Start, Run, type CMD and press Enter to open a command prompt.

Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults: netsh winsock reset catalog
Reset TCP/IP stack to installation defaults: netsh int ip reset reset.log
Clear ARP Cache: netsh interface ip delete arpcache
Flush DNS cache: ipconfig /flushdns

Do you have a XP installation or manufacturers recovery CD?

[kloiga]

I ran the commands first.

Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults: netsh winsock reset catalog

- response: "Sucessfully [sic] reset the Winsock Catalog.
You must restart the machine in order to complete the reset."

Reset TCP/IP stack to installation defaults: netsh int ip reset reset.log

- response: nothing

Clear ARP Cache: netsh interface ip delete arpcache

- response: "Ok."

Flush DNS cache: ipconfig /flushdns

- response: "Windows IP Configuration
Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache."

I then restarted the computer - no change in connectivity

I then ran ipconfig /all again - no change in information, IP address the same, same response from pinging yahoo.com

Connecting an ethernet cable gave me a connection.

I have all the original paperwork and software for the computer (Compaq Presario) but there is no XP disk or recovery CD.

Edited by kloiga, 16 December 2011 - 07:32 PM.

[Ztruker]

Why use a 54MB Wireless USB device when you can use a 100MB Ethernet cable?

Have you tried the Netgear adapter in other USB ports?

Try this:

• Shutdown and unplug the Netgear USB adapter.
• Boot XP and create a new Environment variable called devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices and set it's value to 1 as follows:
  
  • Right click on My Computer and select Properties
  • Click on the Advanced tab
  • Click on the Environmental Variables button
  • Click the New button under the User variables for xxxxx" area.
  • Set the Variable name as: devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices
  • Set the Variable value to: 1
  • Click OK as needed to close all the windows you opened.
• Open Device Manager (Control Panel, System, Hardware tab, Device Manager)
• Click on View then Show hidden devices.
• Scroll down to USB and click on the plus to expand it.
• Uninstall just the non-present USB devices (associated icon is dimmed). DO NOT uninstall your mouse if you are using a USB mouse.
• Shutdown and reboot, let XP rediscover everything and load necessary drivers. This can take a few minutes, be patient.

Now plug in the Netgear USB adapter and see what happens.

[kloiga]

The reason for the wireless is that my wife and I have computers in opposite ends of the house and we use a centrally located wireless modem for access.

Followed the instructions. Under USB controllers there were many 'unknown devices', 'USB Composite Devices' and 'USB Mass Storage Devices' as well as 2 'USB Printing Support' that were dimmed. Additionally there were many random dimmed USB devices and about 30 instances of '1394 Net Adapter'. All were removed. Restarted, then plugged in Netgear Adapter. It asked me if I wanted to let XP handle it but recommended Netgear's software, so I agreed. Still same result, acquiring network address.

What causes all the repeats of the drivers in device manager?

[Ztruker]

Every time you plug a USB device in, XP creates an entry for it if it is not connected to the same port it was last plugged into or if another device has been plugged in to that port in between.

Since that didn't help, let's switch to having Windows manage your wireless network. Repeat the steps to remove it from Device Manager then plug it in only this time let Windows manage it, see if that makes a difference.

[kloiga]

Well that seemed to solve it! Surprisingly, the Netgear dialogue box with connection info still showed up, but I ignored it and used XP to connect, and it worked fine. I then restarted to see if the it would automatically connect and it did with no problem. Thank you so much for your time and effort on this. Is there anything else I should do for closure or follow up?

[Ztruker]

Disable the Netgear wireless manager. I think you can do this via msconfig. Click on the Startup tab and uncheck anything that says Netgear.

Click on Start then Run, type msconfig and press Enter.