Member Avatar for channelx99

Ill try to explain this as best I can. I am connecting directly to another computer through ethernet which shares its dialup connection with me. Problem is, I cannot connect to certain websites such as microsoft and ebay, and I cant run certain programs such as steam or guildwars. I also installed SP2 on both computers via cd since I cant connect to microsoft in the first place, and I think maybe SP2's increased security is causing me problems? Anyone know how to fix this so I can use the internet connection normally? I had it earlier but I recently had to reformt the computer.

The reason I am sharing a dialup connection is I cant get bb in my area, and the first computer wont allow dialup modems to work but thats another story...

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Dani AI

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A concise diagnosis and practical checklist for the symptoms described by (shared dial‑up + recent SP2 install) and the similar report from .

Windows XP SP2 enabled a stateful Windows Firewall by default and also changes how Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) behaves; ICS provides NAT, a DHCP server and a local DNS forwarder on the host. Those two facts explain why some programs that need specific ports or certain ICMP messages can fail while ordinary browsing works. (learn.microsoft.com)

Quick, safe tests (do these on the machine acting as the ICS host first):

  • Verify the Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service is running and that the dial‑up connection’s Advanced → “Allow other network users…” box is set. (learn.microsoft.com)
  • Temporarily disable Windows Firewall and any third‑party security on both machines and retry the problem sites/programs (re‑enable immediately after testing). A working connection when the firewall is off points to firewall/port issues. (learn.microsoft.com)
  • Don’t over‑interpret a ping that times out: many sites drop ICMP while still serving HTTP, so also test name resolution with nslookup and try the site by IP to separate DNS vs. filtering problems.

Game and peer services (Steam, Guild Wars)

  • Steam and many Valve games require wide UDP/TCP port ranges; the Steam client and in‑home streaming use ports in the 27000–27050 range and several UDP ports for voice/P2P. Adding the Steam executable to the firewall exceptions or forwarding the Steam ranges usually fixes client connectivity. (capcom-support.com)
  • Guild Wars explicitly recommends allowing TCP 6112 and TCP 80 (and permitting the game in the firewall). If games work with the firewall off, add program/port exceptions rather than leaving the firewall disabled. (help.guildwars.com)

If only some sites fail while others work, consider a path MTU/fragmentation problem: blocking ICMP “fragmentation needed” breaks Path MTU Discovery and can make some large responses hang. A diagnostic is to test ping -f -l <size> <host> or temporarily lower the NIC MTU to ~1400; routers/firewalls sometimes need MSS clamping as a workaround. (cisco.com)

Summary: confirm ICS is configured correctly, test with the firewall/suites disabled for diagnosis, whitelist the game programs or open the documented port ranges, and check for MTU/ICMP issues if only certain destinations fail.

Member Avatar for channelx99

When I try to ping a site, such as www.ebay.com it says request timed out four times and 4 packets sent, 0 recieved and 4 lost for 100% loss

Member Avatar for daveburley

Hi,
Ive had a similar problem. I have a wireless modem/hub/router and everything works well apart from if i use internet explorer for some websites such as ebay / microsoft etc, they wont display. If I use AOL, they do display perfectly well. The problem comes when me and my girlfriend both want to use the net on seperate systems. If she logs into AOL on the laptop and then I log into AOL on my desktop, it will cut her connection to AOL and forces her to use IE and so she is unable to view those certain pages? Ive messed around with some of the settings but unable to remedy the problem ?

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