Is there any program that can disconnect ur internet?

[Leap Frog]

Maybe check your Modem driver.
Maybe you've somehow changed your Driver to be another one, and now your Computer cannot connect as it is not detecting the Modem?

Just a thought.

[DonJoe]

Did you try to Restore ur PC to early days? Maybe it could help if you did not find any solutions.

[HTRegz]

Hey hey,

I realize that John has already resolved this problem, but since this thread is still going I figured I'd clear up some fallacies, and give some pointers to others having the problem.

the truth is, it has nothing to do with any program installed. it is one of the recent attacks now on the net, i got hit too.

This comment is so far from the truth that it makes my head spin. It has everything to do with software installed. The software may have been installed unbeknownst to the user, but it is still do to software. The key player that comes to mind right now is VX2.ABetterInternet.

On any given day I will deal with 2 or 3 residence students who have lost their connections due to some sort of malware (I think that term is so much better than spyware and adware.. but anyways). It has come to the point where it isn't even worth our time to attempt to find the source of the problem (bad methodology if you want to learn, but it works well when you just need to solve the problem, get them out and see the next person.). Anyways we can usually tell in about 30-60 seconds if it's malware affecting the persons computer. They call down with their problem and the first thing we do is have them run ipconfig/winipcfg. If they have an IP address, yet can't ping anything... we assume malware. We're right about 98-99% of the time. Sometimes they have an IP and can ping, but they can't browse... again malware. Another scenerio is they have an MS Automatic Private IP address (169.) If this is the case it could be a cabling issue, so the next thing to do is have them check for link lights. If they have link lights... the assumption again is some sort of malware.

The student will then bring our PC to us, and we always follow the same path. Install Spybot S&D, update it and scan, next we install AdAware, update it and scan. Then depending on what I've found I may run CWShredder. After that we update their AV (if they have AVG or NAV), or uninstall it (if they have McAffee or eTrust) and install AVG. We also license eTrust, but we've found much better results with AVG. Several times we have scanned a machine with an up-to-date copy of McAffee or eTrust and then removed it and scanned with AVG and found several more virii. After the AV is installed/updated, we'll run a complete scan. After that we'll plug them into the network and usually they'll have a connection. If they don't theirs one last thing to do and that's to reset their TCP settings. There's a great utility to do this and I suggest if you ever lose your connection you make use of it, actually even if you notice your connection is slower than it normally is.. this is useful to run. Its Option^Explicit's WinsockFix (available here). It basically performs a net sh reset logfile (can't remmeber the complete syntax atm). I have a 3mbps DSL line and for a while I was lucky to hit 100K, I ran the WinsockFix and I was back up to full speeds.... so it's really handy for anyone.

Anyways, that's how we operate. Like i said it works about 98-99% of the time, possibly even a little higher, occasionally you'll have a PC with bad NIC, or an OS config problem... however that's rare, the primary cause of lost internet connections these days is malware.

Peace,
HT

[untuchable-me]

i ran into the same problem when i was working for a computer repair shop. what happend was that the user installed adaware and found many spyware, mallware, ect. on his comp. he then removed it all.... after this his internet did not work any more....
i believe that the spesific kind of mallware alters your registry in such a way that your network connection could not be used ithout it.....
however this (like you said) can be undone by restoring your box to a preavious date...

[Tedob1]

thanks for that link HT, i know ive got use for that. just one question. in the file name WinsockXPFix does the XP stand for X-plicit or is this a version for WinXP?

[HTRegz]

Hey Hey,

That's an excellent question, we've got another one at work just called WinsockFix, and then we also have WinsockXPfix.exe. I'm not sure what the difference is.. the both run the same, we use the primarily on XP machines, however on occasion we've ran them on a 98 machine... just not sure if it has any real affect. I'll have to look into that.

Peace,
HT

[JohnHACK]

Thanks all mate....

[SawPer]

First time on this, pretty exciting looking, site.. !
This subject first caught my eye, since it just happened to me a few days ago.
I got some additional info to what has already been said.

My computer was up and running fine. Downloaded the latest Critical Updates from Microsoft. (WinXP Pro) Rebooted, and now I can't browse anywhere! ICQ couldn't connect, MSN couldn't either, but PING did work!

I'm running Sygate Personal Firewall, that is supposed to show all programs that is using any kind of connection, but I couldn't find anything unusal in there.

Opened Task Mgr. and started End Task program after program. When I killed ICQ, it all started to work at once... if this was a coincident or not, I have no idea?! Maybe something has infected my ICQ program.. ?

So my question to all you who had this problem is, do you have ICQ as well?

Thanks!

[The Duck]

HTRegz, your right, spyware/adware is mostly the cause for this kind of problem, but there is a trojan going around that alters your TCP/IP settings. I dont know if some of you AOers call that an "attack" but I do. The trojan is called Trojan.Qhosts, you can find more info about it here:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com...an.qhosts.html

It also has a removal tool on that page

Hope this helps

[pZargs]

friend of mine had the same prob, we linked it back to network card driver that was adversly affected from virii.... Had to reinstall everything but working now...

hijackthis,adaware,norton or mcaffee a must....