[Telf84]

Hi All

We have a few laptops at the company, and a couple of them are starting to have problems connecting to the internet via wireless routers. You can ping and even get to websites when using the IP address only, but when using names "the page cannot be displayed". when hard wiring the laptop to the router, everything works ok.

have checked the router, all seems fine as other laptops connect and work without a problem. just to be sure, have restarted it a couple of times

i have checked the DHCP values from the router and tried entering them manually to no avail. have tried entering the external DNS IPs in the TCP/IP settigns and that didnt work.

i have loaded the latest intel drivers for the wireless 3945ABG card with no success.

from what i can see, this has just suddenly happened on the machines, as they were working. unless a windows update has done something without letting us know. i havent been able to find anything about this kind of problem regarding an update.

i have even tried a complete rebuild/reinstallation of windows on the laptop. Everything was working for a day or so, but the problem returned not long after; IPs of websites would ping but domain names would not resolve

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? your help would be greatly appreciated

[JohnWill]

Well, that seems to be a DNS issue. If you're using the same DNS server address on the laptops, and other laptops are connecting through the same WAP successfully, it would seem it's something on that machine.

Since reloading Windows seems to fix it for a short time, it seems this is something that the user is loading on the machine. When the wireless ceases working, does the laptop still work normally if you connect it to a wired connection?


On a non-working machine, try this stack repair and see if it changes the symptoms.

TCP/IP stack repair options for use with Windows Vista.

Start, Programs\Accessories and right click on Command Prompt, select "Run as Administrator" to open a command prompt.

In the command prompt window that opens, type type the following commands:

Reset WINSOCK entries to installation defaults: netsh winsock reset catalog

Reset IPv4 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. netsh int ipv4 reset reset.log

Reset IPv6 TCP/IP stack to installation defaults. netsh int ipv6 reset reset.log

Reboot the machine.

[Telf84]

Hi

thanks for the response. i have discovered what is triggering this now, but not why.

it seems that all works until we join the laptop to the domain. then after logging on (either with a network password, or local logon) the symptoms occurr.

once logged on (for example local administrator) the LAN cable is disconnected, and a wireless link can be set up to the router. The IPs respond but not names. we use a proxy which is set by GP for domain logons but this is removed when testing the router. This shouldnt come into affect with a local logon anyway. when we hard wire to the router (changing IP details to DHCP of course) everything seems to work as is should. We have many machines connected to the domain that can connect to domain names via the wireless, so im not sure why certain machines would do this.

[JohnWill]

The domain throws a new wrinkle into the mix.

Let's see this before and after logging into the domain.


Hold the Windows key and press R, then type CMD to open a command prompt:

In the command prompt window that opens, type type the following command:

Note that there is a space before the /ALL, but there is NOT a space after the / in the following command.

IPCONFIG /ALL

Right click in the command window and choose Select All, then hit Enter.
Paste the results in a message here.

If you are on a machine with no network connection, use a floppy, USB disk, or a CD-RW disk to transfer a text file with the information to allow pasting it here.