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rambollet

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I'm running Win XP-Home, MS IE 6.0, external Cable Modem, and ethernet connection on a 3 week old Sony Vaio RX660. I've been running IE without any problems. Then last night any time I launched IE the browser, it always loaded with the error of "This Page Cannot Be Displayed". Even if I type a URL in the address bar, the same error occurs. I had not shut the computer down or changed any settings since using IE the night before.

My cable ISP help desk told me that they could ping my computer and that I had an active connection. Problem was I couldn't ping any systems. The communication was only one way - from the internet to my computer and not from my computer to the internet. After walking me through checking various settings they concluded that the problem must lie with my firewall - Zone Alarm Pro 3.0.

I have tried the following (in order):
1. Shutting down Zone Alarm
2. Uninstalling Zone Alarm and the registries for ZA.
3. Turning off XP's firewall.
4. Using System Recovery disks to reload my system and bring my system back to "like new" condition. (I have not yet installed any other applications other than what was on the computer when I purchased it).
5. Use Connection Repair in My Network Computers which resulted in an error message of "Cannot repair, unable to obtain an IP address".
6. Reseating the ethernet cable and the coax cable.
7. Changing all of IE's setting to default.

None of the above have provided any relief. MS online support indicates that my problem could be caused by damage to the WinSock2 registry key. However, I would think that doing the system recovery would have resolved the damaged registry key as I had not had any prior problems with IE or the internet.

Positives:
1. All lights on the modem and NIC are working
2. XP tells me that the NIC is working properly.
3. My Network Computers shows that my LAN is enabled.

Do any of you XP gurus have an idea as to what my problem is and how it can be resolved?
 
5. Use Connection Repair in My Network Computers which resulted in an error message of "Cannot repair, unable to obtain an IP address".


There is your problem. Who is your cable ISP?

Your computer is not pulling an address from the DHCP server, hence you have no IP address...which baffles me as to how the tech support operator pinged an ip that doesn't exist..he probably just pinged the modem gateway.

try re-installing your tcp/ip adapters, and make sure that you have your connection set to obtain an ip address automatically (unless your cable provider gives you a static one)
 
Thanks for the advice. At this time I don't think I need to follow it. However, I am printing it for future reference.

The field support for my ISP showed up and according to the instructions he left with my spouse, the firewall for XP needed to be turned off. He told her that I can't run a fire wall and that XP is causing a lot of problems. According to my spouse, all he did was turn off the XP firewall and IE started loading pages again.

I don't know how this fixed the problem, or even if it was the fix, but I immediately turned the firewall back on an encountered no errors. I'm not going to accept the advice from my ISP that a firewall shouldn't be run.

Before the tech came out I had already tried deactivating XP;s firewall and didn't have any resolution. Not sure what the problem was but it is working fine now. (Maybe just enough shut down and reboots along the way.)

I have since deactivated the XP firewall and reinstalled Zone Alarm Pro 3.0. So far no problems. We'll see how it goes.


By the way, according to ZA log, my ISP is always trying to access my computer. I've been denying access as I don't know why they need access. They haven't responded to my email inquiry.
Anyone want to offer a reason as to why my ISP needs access to my computer?
 
What do you mean by they are trying to access your comp?

it could be late DNS answeres arriving, DHCP renew requests..what is the port and such that they are trying to connect to?
 
The Zone Alarm log indicates that it "blocked traffic to port abc on your machine from port xyz on a remote computer.... ", where abc (destination)has been ports 80 and 139, and xyz (origination) has been 80. 1660, 4014, 21392.


ISP provider is Roadrunner.
 
Port 80 is the web server - so their web server is trying to talk to the web server on your machine. If you don't have one, don't worry about it. Port 139 is NetBIOS, and I would ask them to tell you why their webserver thinks it has to connect to NetBIOS on your machine.
 
as for the port 80 those can just be nimda/code red scans and such, are you positive the IP's accessing those ports are from your ISP?

as for the other ports listed, seems like late HTTP requests and such.
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
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Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
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