Windows 7 - strange network failure

I have an interesting problem...

Recently I have been having trouble with one of my computers. As a
result I have now re-installed windows XP 3 or 4 times since the
beginning of the year, with the majority of those times being the last 2
months or so.

Internet connectivity stops working. I get a message that a network
cable is disconnected. I cannot use the internet.
Strange because it is a dual booting system and my Linux partition has
NO TROUBLE connecting.

After I re-install Windows XP everything works fine. Internet works, I
can download, surf, email... I then go through the very lengthy time
consuming process of re-installing software and registering licenses so
the software can work (some packages make it impossible to just use a
key phrase).

Sooner or later the internet stops working in XP. This happened again
recently, when I boot to linux it works so I know it is not the
hardware.
I tried changing the speed and duplex setting from auto to 10 or 100 mb
full or half. No change, no internet connection.
I have tried removing and re-installing the driver for the network
adapter.
Even going back to a previous restore point, when the network WAS
working does not fix it!

I removed my hard drive and I re-installed XP to a smaller hard drive
and, yes, I can connect again.

I do NOT want to go through the process of re-installing software or
license rights again. Besides, it may only fail again in a few
days/weeks.
I would like to be able to fix this on my XP installation.

How do I ...

1. Find out what is broken and fix it?

2. Stop it from breaking again.? (This will no doubt depend on answer to
1).

One thing that comes to mind... I do not register XP after I install, I
just activate it over the net. This option to register it... is it
manditory? Could this be the cause?

the system in question...
Cable connection to internet (NOT wireless).
Asus A7V8x, Asus tek/Broadcom 4401 integrated controller (on
motherboard) .
XP home. XP service pack 3, I allow all updates to take place as I am
notified (except I do not allow iIE 8 to be installed), normally I use
firefox.


Thanks




--
alpsoandso

Tip: get the system to where you want it to be and then image it. The
next time you feel the need to reinstall the OS, just restore the
image. You'll save a ton of time by not having to reinstall your apps.


What kind of Internet access do you have? Cable, DSL, dial-up,
cellular, WISP, other?

What does your local network look like? Do you have a router? Do you
have other PC's that presumably keep working when this one does not?

What does the output of "ipconfig /all" look like? Check it when the
connectivity is good as well as when it is bad so you can compare the
results.

When you lose connectivity, can you still ping your router, if you
have one?

I expect ipconfig to tell you what is going on, so be sure to check
that. You'll need to open a Command Prompt and run it from there, of
course.

Excellent points, thanks.

Yes, I have cloned the drive. I use clonzilla. restoring the original
HD from clone is a time saver, but it puts back an OS that will
inevitably fail (if history repeats itself a 4th or 5th time). I need to
know WHY it is messing up and how to fix it.

The connection is through ethernet cable to a tp-link router.
I doubt I can ping (do not know how) anything because XP insists that a
network cable is disconnected. I have highspeed DSL from my cable
supplier. The router serves 3 other computers that may or may not be on
at the same time.  None of the computers is set up to "talk" to any of
the others.

ipconfig /all might give something.

I went into the fresh install I made on the small hard drive. It does
not have all the software I use on the affected system. So it is
cleaner.
I took some screen shots (camera) of the network settings and settings
for the broadcom 4401 controller.

I will compare those to the settings on the affected system to see if
they match up. They should.

Maybe also ipconfig /all on the fresh install and the affected install,
could be interesting.

Thanks again!




--
alpsoandso

Absolutely.


Ping is easy, and simply checks for connectivity between two points.
At the command prompt, type "ping 192.168.1.1" to ping your tp-link
router, assuming you have left it at the default. I agree, ping will not
work if XP says the network is disconnected.

Note that DSL typically comes from the phone company while cable comes
from the cable company. As competitors, DSL does not come from the
cable company, but it is irrelevant now that I know you have a router.
You're losing connectivity between the PC and the router, not between
the router and the Internet.


A camera works, but you will usually use the Print Screen key on your
keyboard, either by itself to capture the entire screen or Alt-PrtSc
to capture just the active window. Anything you do from a command
prompt can be saved in a text file by using the redirection modifier,
as in "ipconfig /all > C:\ipconfig.txt".


You're welcome. Let us know how it goes.

I have an absolutely interesting development.  No success but...

The problem struck again. This time on the fresh XP test install I made
on a spare 80 gig HD a few days ago. I installed XP on 20 june, and it
looked fine up until 23 june 2012 at about 1 am when I had decided to
compare the output of a working install of XP on that system with the
ipconfig output of an install that showed network cable unplugged. As
soon as it booted up I saw the broken network icon in the lower right of
the bar.
I kept a log of my activity on this test install. It may hold the key?
The fresh install now reports a network cable is disconnected. Just like
all the other re-installs I made this year eventually do. WHY is this
happening?
I put the original HD back in and booted to debian/linux (dual boot) ,
the internet works fine, no problems. If I boot up to the windows
partition on that disk.. .. network cable unplugged, no internet access.
Same if I boot from the fresh install 80 gig test hard drive.

I managed to run ipconfig and direct the output to a text file. The
output is identical on both the fresh test install and the original
install on the original HD (getting confusing yet?)

Windows IP Configuration
Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : a7v8x
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : ASUSTeK/Broadcom 440x 10/100
Integrated Controller
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-E0-18-E0-C4-0C

I do not know what this means except the obvious "media disconnected".
I also tested whether the fresh install would have network connectivity
from safe mode. It did not, though I did not see the broken network icon
on lower right of bar. Firefox displayed a message about not being able
to connect. The ipconfig /all output in safe mode was identical to that
obtained in a regular boot on the same system.

I took some screen shot photos of the various network controller
settings (device manager) as well as the network connection settings
(control panel) while the test install was working.
As far as I can tell the settings are the same for when the test HD had
network connectivity and after connectivity failed (no changes seen).

The last 2 microsoft updates that went onto that test setup were
...KB2345886 and KB970430. They were installed on 21 june 2012 at about
noon. They system booted fine later that day (2 pm) and on the 22 june
as well. 23 of june the unplugged cable problem struck. I have booted to
linux several times and it works. From XP... unplugged cable problem.

????? What is going on?????
Does the ipconfig hold any clues?




--
alpsoandso

I do not see anything useful in the output of ipconfig. Did Device
Manager show anything interesting?

At this point, I am thinking it is possibly a broken TCP/IP stack, (but
reinstalling Windows would have fixed it unless you perhaps have a
favorite little app that you like to install that breaks it again), a
bad NIC driver, (are you using the latest driver?), a bad Ethernet
cable, etc. You're finding that it works when you boot to Linux, which
I am using as a clue, but I do not know if you would  run into a problem if
you stayed in Linux for any length of time.

Device manager shows nothing unusual.
The cable is fine, I even swapped it with one from another computer.
Same problem. Besides, the cables all work with the linux install fine.
Latest driver downloaded from the ASUS website for that motherboard.
Broken tcp/ip stack? I dunno the lingo, bit yest, re-installing windows
has worked everytime, for a short period. This time it was for 3 days.
And this time I did NOT install anything exotic on the system, just
adobe reader, dvd burning stuff/power producer and a file utility to zip
and get around with, otherwise a clean install.

It is a real puzzle, what would cause XP to see an issue with the
network, report it as a disconnected cable and loose connectivity,  but
Linux sees no problem at all and connects fine?

I bought and installed a network card. It works fine under XP and I have
internet again (so far), but this does not solve the riddle, something
is still not right.




--
alpsoandso

TCPIP does screwy things like this.  You might want to try the command
prompt ipreset and winsock reset.

Parts of the MS pages follow:
The reset command is available in the IP context of the NetShell
utility. Follow these steps
to use the reset command to reset TCP/IP manually:
To open a command prompt, click Start and then click Run. Copy and paste
(or type) the
following command in the Open box and then press ENTER:
cmd
At the command prompt, copy and paste (or type) the following command
and then press ENTER:
netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt
Note If you do not want to specify a directory path for the log file,
use the following
command:
netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt
Reboot the computer.
When you run the reset command, it rewrites two registry keys that are
used by TCP/IP. This
has the same result as removing and reinstalling the protocol. The reset
command rewrites
the following two registry keys:
SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\
SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\DHCP\Parameters\

Manual steps to recover from Winsock2 corruption
Windows XP with Service Pack 2 instructions
To repair Winsock if you have Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) installed,

type netsh winsock reset at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

EdFair

Thanks

One of the more insightful replies I have received.
Unfortunately it did not work.

I am starting to believe that it might be possible, even though it
sounds so far fetched, that something subtle has changed the onboard
network hardware enough so that Linux continues to work and has no
trouble connecting to the internet , but with Windows (unless I
re-install and then for only a few days until it is broken again) it
does not.
Scratch up another one for Linux!!

I gave up.
I bought a network card. Windows now connects through this card but
still reports unplugged cable when connected to the onboard network
port.

Thanks to all.

Alp




--
alpsoandso

Understand the reason for the change. It can be frustrating. I have fought
the same battles.

My next suggestion would have been to delete the hardware in device
manager and let XP install the drivers again to see if it came back.
And after that would be to delete the drivers and install from the
manufacturer's CD. Both to see if it came back without reinstalling and
also to see if it still went away.