Computer is unable to communicate on TCP/IP network

Hello. Prepare for huge wall of text.

While booting my computer this morning I noticed that it was taking longer than it usually does. At first it hung up on the XP welcome screen - without playing the startup tune - and then displayed my desktop bakground without any icons or the taskbar while playing the startup tune.

I didn't worry much about it since I thought my messy desktop was the reason for the slow boot.

But when I started my browser my default page wouldn't load and I was presented by Mozilla Firefox's "Server not found" error message.

I immediately opened a command prompt to check if my IP-configuration had been altered - but it looked completely normal.

I suspected that the router or switch might be spookin', but my brother who's connected to the same switch as me was able to connect without any problems.

I tried pinging our local router, but only got 4 "Request timed out".
My brother on the other hand could ping the router without issues.

I then tried pinging my own network card which worked, but I don't know if that eliminates the possibility of a faulty NIC.


So far I've tried different IP's, different ports on the switch and different network cables - without any luck. I've yet to try swapping NICs as I have none available.

What more bugged me was that this issue appeared somewhat spontainiously.
When I went to bed it worked - as I was watching some streaming media while trying to fall asleep (shutdown command to turn the machine off) - and when I woke up and rooted it didn't work

I hadn't changed any settings related to network in a while, and neither had I intalled any new hardware or made any significant system changes.

But when I decided to go try a system to fix the issues i noticed a restore point made just about when I was going to sleep. It was made by "Software Distribution Service 3".

A quick google search informed me that it was the name microsoft uses for Windows Update, and more importantly: there were several topics about how people had lost connection to the internet after these updates.

Some had been successful in removing these updates and regained their connectivity - others had tried a restoration point. Since my update weren't the same as the other's I too tried to go for a system restore but after reboot I was told by the application that the restoration failed. After that I found out that you couldn't restore to a point previous to the installation of the Windows Update.

Other mentioned that they had regained their connectivity after disabling or uninstalling their their software firewalls. I tried uninstalling my Zone Alarm Free and rebooted.

This did fix the slow booting - but I was still not able to communicate on the network.

As the the system restore and disabling of the firewall didn't work i decided to try and uninstall the recent updates.
In my case the recently applied updates were "Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable - KB2467175" and "Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable - KB2467174 - x86 9.0.30729.5570"

Even after successfully uninstalling the updates I was not able no connect or communicate - but I was able to do a system restore now. I chose a restore point two days prior to the installation of the updates.

When rebooting from the restore - it was booting the same way it did before I uninstalled the Zone Alarm Firewall. When it was done booting I tried pinging the router - Request timed out - now I'm writing this.

This is pretty much what I've got so far- I've also tried with older as well as the newest drivers for the NIC without any luck.

I don't really know how to proceed with solving this problem so I'll gladly take any advice you might have to offer.

Please tell me if you need any additional information, as I certainly have left something out.


I've also run some different malware scans without any reported infections.
SYstem specs can be found in the attached DXdiag-log

 

After replacing the the NIC, the problem no longer persists.

/Thread