Netgear DG834G (v3) Router. Wireless OK, but wired fails.

Hi there. I hope somebody can help me.

I have Netgear DG834G (v3) with latest firmware; Connected to my desktop PC via ethernet cable, and to laptop via wireless.

Laptop wireless works perfectly for websites, email and FTP.

My problems:

1. Desktop (wired) fails to connect to any FTP sites at all, (same result on numerous FTP clients, FTP Explorer, CuteFTP, WS_FTP, Smart FTP, etc). Laptop (wireless) does not have this problem.

2. Desktop (wired) fails to connect to any websites unless IE browser is used. (Firefox, Chrome, Opera etc. refuse connection inexplicably). No proxy used. Settings appear identical to IE. Laptop (wireless) does not have this problem.

3. Dekstop (wired) fails to connect to internet from most of my apps, eg. when installing something or checking for updates, I get "connection refused" type errors. Laptop (wireless) does not have this problem.

Desktop Firewall not an issue; it is disabled. No 3rd party Antivirus, Firewall etc. is installed either. Router firewall has FTP rule set up already. And I dont think the router firewall is relevant since the wireless laptop does not share these problems; only the wired desktop, connected via ethernet.

Win XP Pro SP2 on both machines.

I would reinstall windows but I doubt it would help.

Any ideas or suggestions gratefully received!

 

Horrible problem.

In the 1st instance and more to do with your point 1.

In IE Tools> Internet Options > Advanced, there will be an entry Use Passive FTP, is that checked? If not, check it, reboot and see if that has helped at all.

Good Luck

 

I tried the Passive FTP setting in IE --- made no difference

 

Tell us about the ethernet / NIC card which the desktop has. Make model & are you using the card's drivers or XP's Wireless Zero Configuration [WZC].

For clarity, WZC will be located in Services. Control Panel>Administrative Tools> Services.

If the NIC card driver is being used this will most easily be seem in Msconfig and this item will either be checked or unchecked.

Good Luck

 

Under My Computer > Manage > Device Manager > Network Adapters I have:
Intel PRO/100 M Network Connection

Under Control Panel > Admin Tools > Services > Wireless Zero Config I have:
Wireless Zero Configuration
Provides automatic configuration for the 802.11 adapters

...although I'm not sure why that's relevant since my wireless works fine, its the wired connection I have problems with.?

I assume that I'm using the XP drivers, since my desktop pc came with the card isntalled, and i never installed any knew drivers for the card, at least not knowingly! And the WZC service appears to be running.

Still baffled as to why wireless stuff is relevant here, t.b.h.!

Not sure what I should be looking for in msconfig. Can you clarify please?

Thanks,
Owen

 

Apologies OwenGeek, my mistake. Of course the Wired NIC would not require this, I must have been having a Homer Simpson moment.

Go to Start>Run and type in Command. At the prompt type 'ping' [without quotes] space and the IP address of your router.

eg: ping 192.168.0.1

Since you have a Netgear router, the ip address will be 192.168.0.1. The Ping will send out 4 packets to the router and ascertain that the connection between wired NIC and router is fine. You will see the result and I expect that it will pass.

Next at the same command prompt type ping and bbc.co.uk or any site and the NIC will then test whether you have a WAN [wide area network] connection.

If this second ping fails then your desktop pc for some reason has an issue with access to the internet [which may be intermittent].

Presumably you have tried power cycling the router ie pulling the power cord out waiting 30 secs and reconnecting it again. Do this with all clients [pcs] off. Could be the router has got a bit confused and this sometimes rectifies eg the router is giving duplicate ip address to the client pcs [desktop,laptop]

If this were my pc, I would also boot with a Puppy Linux Live cd and this would illiminate the possibility of hw issues with the NIC.

Try the pings first and power cycling the router and we can take it from their if you still have an issue.

Good Luck

 

Hi thanks for the reply. I will try the pings later (I'm not at my pc right now) and report back.

However, may I please just repeat that my problems seem limited to specific software: IE & Outlook have no problems at all. It's everything else that fails with "connection refused". For this reason I'm seriously doubting a hardware issue. (Surely if the router was physically broken I wouldn't be able to connect with anything, including IE and Outlook).

Oh, and yes I've tried rebooting the router (power down/up) many, many times. Also the 'soft' reboot (click reboot in the router admin page). Sadly rebooting makes no difference whatsoever, or doesn't seem to. I'd love to know if you have any other ideas...!!!

 

Yep, pings worked fine, as expected. And I am using this website in IE without any problems, so I'm not surprised the pings worked. The internet connection is fine, it's just not working with anything besides Microsoft Internet Explorer and Outlook.! *Nothing* else works!

 

This does feel like a FW issue but as you said you have disabled it. At this stage, the best that I can offer is:

1. Boot to Safemode with networking and see if this cures

or

2. http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=190876

Puppy Linux will load entirely into ram and as such has no impact on your xp install.
I am pretty certain that it will have drivers for your Intel NIC and it should not be onerous to set up.

The use of Puppy will at least determine the integrity of the HW and that we are dealing I guess with some form of software issue.

I would agree that the DG834G is not at the root of the problem.

Good Luck

 

Yeah, it's baffling isn't it. Very much sounds like a FW issue but XP's firewall is disabled. I can only think maybe there is something lurking on my system from a historical installation of Norton or similar, which has long since been uninstalled, but left something nasty lurking behind. Can you suggest any cleaning/checking utilities that will check for unseen firewall-ish components or similar things and remove them?

Thanks for this, I'll give it a try and report back.

Owen.

 

Norton removal can leave behind many registry and other entries which could cause this problem and now that you mention that it may have been installed on your system, I would tend to place bad FW/FW+AV uninstall at the top of the list of suspects.

Question: Was your desktop running properly previously ie is this a recent problem and can you remember uninstalling Norton or other progs subsequent to which you got this issue.

Norton do have removal tools and instructions for their products. I am not sure if those remove everything but they remove enough to let the system function properly. ZoneAlarm, can also cause issues and they also have instructions for manual removal.

I cannot direct you to the Norton removal tool which you need since they are year dependant. The MG site has then for download and their are loads of historic posts on how to go about it on this forum. Equally, for ZA their forums have stickies on removal instructions.

In respect of registry cleaner, there are several to choose from. CCleaner and RegCleaner are two that I use. However, prior to using those and which the knowledge that Norton or other existed on the pc, I would firstly try to use the product relevant for removal first and then after global internet access has been restored go to the registry cleaners.

I would nevertheless try you boot to safemode with networking and/or using a Puppy Linux live cd which will completely rule out the possibility of hw issues.

Good Luck

 

PS: the fact that the ping command worked and you accessed external websites also seems to point to a bad uninstall of a FW or internet suite type prog.

Good Luck

 

It is very hard for me to pinpoint when this problem started I'm afraid. Since I don't use all the affected apps on a daily basis, it may have been weeks or months after the problem occurred, that I finally noticed it.

However, the following installations/removals spring to mind:

Most recent change:
Avira AntiVir Personal 8.1.0.331 - Installed from a magazine's cover disc. Later removed using Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs

Before that:
Kapersky Internet Security - Tried to install from purchased CD, but it failed to install due to issues described in this thread ("connection refused" when trying to find updates or register ownership).

A long time before that:
Norton Internet Secirity (2002 or 2003?) - Uninstalled after a while using the uninstaller that came with it. But I'm fairly sure I've reinstalled WinXP since then.

I will try Safe Mode when I get home tonight. Meanwhile, there's a couple of things I thought may be worth looking at, but don't fully understand. I wonder if you can let me know what you think? Here goes...

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy - this seems to contain various rules for accessibility of network resources. Could it be relevant?

msconfig - could there be anything visible in here that should be turned off or disabled?

Thanks for your help!
Owen.

 

In order to try and access which ex-FW / internet suite is the culprit, you could try the following

Start>run -->type regedit to get you into the registry and then expand the HKEY_CURRENT_USER AND HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE keys. They each have a SOFTWARE key, expand that and see if you can spot anything.

You could also go into MSconfig and see whether there is an orphan entry which would help. Otherwise, try ADD/Remove and see whether there is anything also.

Avira is usually a non-problematic uninstall. Norton is a sonofabitch. I have no experience with Kapersky other than having installed it years ago and which lead to 100% cpu usage. Since I had imaged the partition prior to install, I just reverted to an earlier image and hence the potential problem was side stepped.

However, if I had to guess from what you said I would place Kaspersky at the top of my suspects list.

Not sure had a look at mine and there was nothing set up. I will have a closer look again when next into XP as I am in Linux at the mom.

Good Luck

 

Hi

Good news - I got this working! I have posted a reply, but for some reason my reply didn't get past the forum mods here.

So here's another post:

In a nutshell, your suggestion of looking in the registry yielded great results. I discovered a whole load of Symantec stuff lurking on my system. Including a folder with DLLs and stuff. I have no idea how it got there. But something must have installed it. I heard Kapersky may install Symantec drivers by stealth and fails to uninstall properly.

Well, I zapped the Symantec stuff and the problem was solved.

Thank you so much for your help! :major

Owen

 

Glad to here that cleaning the registry worked OwenGeek.

At least we got their in the end.

FYG, I generally tend to use Avast (free) and if that causes issues, I resort to NOD32 (fee) as my fallback. Both these progs uninstall very cleanly.

Good Luck