Member Avatar for JimBadger

Hi,

I'm currently without internet access at home, since my PC locked up as a result of what I think might have been a power surge.

The PC utterly froze and I had no choice but to power it off. I didn't boot it up again until the next day, and realised I had no internet access (wireless broadband). The strange thing is, that my wife's laptop can connect quite merrily.

Now, the wife is away for three nights with said laptop, and I am left without internet access. (I'm not supposed to use her work laptop anyway, but...). So, this might be slow going as I can only download fix tools and stuff at work and take them home. I might be able to post a Hijackthis log after lunch.

I'll summarise the situation and what I have done so far, but I'm out of ideas now.

This is an XP PC, by the way.

  • My wireless is detected, and I appear to connect as usual (although the DNS registration step FEELs like it's happening too fast, faster than it used to.
  • IE and Firefox both just display page cannot be found messages.
  • Hijackthis log showed: Broken internet access because of LSP Provider 'lsplaf.dll'. - No mention of that particular dll via Google search.
  • I followed some instructions on another forum, and deleted the Winsock/Winsock2 entries from my registry, rebooted and then reinstalled TCP/IP
  • Hijackthis log entry reported above is now gone. But the problem remains the same.
  • Downloaded LSPFix, which showed nothing in the Remove column. Clicked Finish. Rebooted. Same problem.
  • Downloaded Winsockxpfix, ran it, rebooted...same problem.
  • Finally, I downloaded AdAware but was too tired and angry to run it last night, so will pop home from work at lunchtime and give it a go. (I'll also be taking the latest version of Hijackthis with me if I can borrow a USB device from someone. Edit: Got it, so I can post logs later on)
  • I don't want to reinstall Windows, or reformat as an absolute last resort, but is there any other way to utterly nuke my network connections, and anything broadband related and start over?

I'd be very grateful for any advice people have. I'm gutted that the two main fixes of this problem that I've seen on the net haven't worked for me.

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Dani AI

Generated

A compact troubleshooting plan to narrow this down without reinstalling Windows. Because the wife's laptop works, the router/ISP is almost certainly fine — focus first on whether the XP box has (a) no local link to the router, (b) lost DNS/resolution, (c) a corrupted Winsock/LSP stack, or (d) hardware/driver damage from the surge (blue screens while scanning point to that possibility).

Run these tests and paste results (ipconfig /all and the ping/nslookup outputs plus your HijackThis log) when you return — they’ll show where the failure sits:

ipconfig /all
(find the "Default Gateway" value from the output)
ping <DefaultGateway>
ping 8.8.8.8
ping google.com
nslookup google.com

If the gateway ping works but 8.8.8.8 does not, you have a routing/NIC problem. If 8.8.8.8 works but google.com fails, it’s DNS. If nothing pings, it’s local (driver/hardware).

Next remedial steps (non-destructive, one at a time): boot Safe Mode with Networking and test; check Hosts file at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts; open Device Manager, select View → Show hidden devices and uninstall any old/ghost network adapters, then reboot; run the built-in resets:

netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt
sfc /scannow   (requires XP CD if problems are fixed)

Also try a wired connection or a known-good USB Wi‑Fi/ethernet adapter to rule out the wireless card. Use Last Known Good Configuration if the problem began after the crash. Check Event Viewer for driver errors and, if you get BSODs, note the STOP code and collect minidumps from C:\Windows\Minidump.

As suggested, start with Device Manager and pings. As suggested, run a full antimalware scan (safe mode if needed). Back up the registry before manual edits. Post the ipconfig/ping/nslookup outputs and the HijackThis log and the exact STOP code from any BSOD — that will let volunteers point to the next targeted fix.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for HP-Guy

Start with the basics.. Whats showing in Device Manager (are there any unknowns or disabled) Can you ping your router? Can you ping the outside world?

Member Avatar for crunchie

Download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware (http://www.majorgeeks.com/Malwarebytes_Anti-Malware_d5756.html) to your desktop.

* Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
* At the end, be sure to checkmark the Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, then click Finish.
* If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version.
* Download the update from here if you have problems.
* Once the program has loaded, select Perform full scan, then click Scan.
* When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
* Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
* When completed, a log will open in Notepad.
* Post the log back here.

The log can also be found here:
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Malwarebytes\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\Logs\log-date.txt
Or at C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\Logs\log-date.txt

Make sure that you restart the computer.

==============

Download HijackThis Executable from here. Save it to your desktop.
Start HJT & press the "Do a system scan and save a log file" button. When the scan is finished a window will pop up giving you the option of where to save it. Save it to desktop where it is easy to access. Open the log file and then go to the format Tab and make sure that wordwrap is unchecked. Copy the entire contents of the file & paste it into the body of your post. DO NOT FIX ANYTHING YET. Most of what is there is necessary for the running of your system.

Member Avatar for JimBadger

HP-Guy,

Thanks for the reply. I'll try pinging a few things next time I'm at home. Device Manager isn't reporting any problems, I had a look at that last night.

I know I can grab any old IP address to ping, but I'm not entirely sure what to ping for my router. How would I find this? Is it one of the nubmers reported when I go to Dos and do ipconfig?

Crunchie,

I popped home at lunchtime with the intention of getting a HJT log, and running Adaware, which I installed last night. However, my machine blue-screened twice whilst doing the Adaware scan, and then I ran out of time and had to come back to work (I've left the machine on, having a third attempt at running it).

Of course, unhelpfully the link to the Malwarebytes program is blocked at work by Websense, but I'll see if I can grab it from somewhere else (and the update).

Hopefully I'll be able to post a log, from something(!) tomorrow!

Thank you both for the replies.

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