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I work for the help desk of a certain company (I won't say the name of it), and had a guy come with a laptop. We tried to connect to the internet and were unsuccessfull. We tried to connect wirelessly, we did, we could ping other sites and we even had an excellent signal, yet we coudn't surf the web. We tried IE6 and firefox and no luck. We tried using an ethernet connection and stiill had the same problem. I really don't know what we were doing wrong. He was runing xp pro on a dell inspiron. We had the drivers for the cards, we used the correct wi-fi signal, we used a workiing ethernet port, I don't know what else to say. If any one could please help me, I'd appreciated, thanks.

ThNNS

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Dani AI

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's follow-up that the laptop was deliberately blocked is the most important fact here. When a user "sees" the network but cannot browse, that behavior is usually deliberate and enforced by the infrastructure rather than a client-side driver or browser bug. The notes below explain common enforcement methods, quick checks a help desk can perform, and what an admin will typically need to investigate.

Network controls that produce these symptoms include VLAN or switch-port ACLs that place a machine in a limited-access network, firewall rules that allow ICMP but block TCP/HTTP, a web proxy that requires authentication or domain membership, NAC/802.1X or a captive portal that hasn’t authenticated the user, and SSL-interception appliances (which can break HTTPS if the client lacks the appliance CA). Any of those will make the machine appear "on the network" while preventing normal web traffic.

Useful quick checks for the help desk (to collect evidence for the network team): run ipconfig /all to confirm IP/gateway/DNS; use nslookup to verify name resolution; try a direct IP URL in a browser to separate DNS from HTTP issues; inspect browser proxy settings (Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN settings on Windows); check the hosts file; run tracert to a public web host and use telnet host 80 (or an equivalent) to test TCP port 80. If permitted, capture a short packet trace to show where TCP connections fail. Document the client MAC, IP and timestamp before escalating.

What admins should check: proxy/firewall logs by IP or MAC, RADIUS/NAC authentication logs, switch-port VLAN assignment, AD/group membership and any web-filter policies. If access is blocked on purpose, follow the documented request/escalation path instead of attempting workarounds.

Member Avatar for TheNNS

Never mind, he's not allowed to have internet access.

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