broken internet connection
February 9, 2008 5:38 AM   Subscribe

I just wiped Vista from my Dell e521 and installed XP pro. Internet connection came right up. Unplugged the ethernet cable from the e521, plugged it into a c521 and did the exact same thing. Internet connection doesn't work. What could be wrong?

I dl'd and installed all XP drivers from Dell prior to testing connection.

When I test the connection with the Broadcom diagnostic utility it fails, saying "A valid IP address is required." Then it shows an IP field with all zeros labeled "Destination IP" and under that says "Could not obtain gateway address or the Network Device is set to a static IP addresss." (It is not, the router (D-link DI-524) is set to Dynamic IP address. )

I entered the router's gateway address in the IP field and then the test says "send packet failed". Any ideas?
posted by luser to Computers & Internet (5 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Response by poster: I ran the same diagnostic utility on the e521, with the working connection, and I got the result "ping to IP address 192.168.0.1 (passed)" This is the same gateway IP I tried with the c521. ???
posted by luser at 5:45 AM on February 9, 2008


Go into Device manager and make sure that the ethernet driver is loaded and that there is no yellow sign next to it. Go into properties for your tcp/ip connection and make sure that obtain IP and DNS automatically is checked.
posted by Ferrari328 at 6:45 AM on February 9, 2008


Response by poster: IP and DNS automatically are both checked, still no connection.

In case this helps, below is what you see on the command line under ipconfig /all for both the working computer, and the nonworking. Sorry about the alignment: 
                                 Working                Broken
Physical address:      (six pairs of digits)    (six pairs of digits)
DHCP enabled      YES                         YES
Autoconfiguration 
enabled                  YES                    YES
IP Address              192.168.0.103         0.0.0.0
Subnet Mask             255.255.255.0       0.0.0.0
Default Gateway       192.168.0.1            (no value)
DHCP Server              192.168.0.1            255.255.255.255
Lease obtained           (a date/time this 
                          morning)      (field doesn't exist)     
Lease expires     (one week later)  (field doesn't exist)

I'm begging here. I would LOVE to get this figured out.
posted by luser at 8:35 AM on February 9, 2008


The XP trick I used to use was to go into Device Manger and uninstall the network device. Reboot and XP will find it and reinstall the driver cleanly, and hopefully work.

Sorry Vista didn't work for you. I'm enjoying it.

Good luck.
posted by Argyle at 9:14 AM on February 9, 2008


Its not pulling DHCP information (but you already know that :)

I would do what Ferrari328 said and check Device Manager to make sure the Network card driver(s) have loaded successfully and are the most current version.

Then check Event Viewer and see if there are any event log errors listed that might shed light on why its not grabbing an IP.

Next I would test with a 2nd network card (perhaps a USB network adapter, or a generic PCI card if you've got PCI slots. )

Still not working?... I'd boot from a Ubuntu "Live" cd and test networking under that just to make sure there is no hardware failure. I might also look for a BIOS update (or reset BIOS to factory defaults and make sure there isnt anything in BIOS disabling the network card)
posted by jmnugent at 1:22 PM on February 9, 2008


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