Nothing can connect to internet except for 1 version of Firefox -Comodo to blame?

Hello, I have been burdened by this issue for a few mos now. It seems progressive. Quick specs: I have Windows XP on a Dell Inspiron 9200. 80 g hard drive. Memory does appear to be dragging of late. Service pack 2, I believe. The issue is that, at present, only Firefox version 2.0.0.1 can connect to the internet. Newer versions cannot, Explorer cannot, and none of my antivirus (AVG free ed, Advanced Windows Care, Ad-Aware nor Spyware blaster can). I bought Migo Registry repair for a different issue last fall, which worked fine until the last few weeks when it now says it's encountered an error and needs to close, even after I've reinstalled it. Itunes can connect ok, but connecting to the store sometimes takes two tries.

I had suspected the Comodo Pro (free ed) firewall I had installed for a yr or so. I uninstallled it recently, as best I could (they make it difficult). I had been getting messages telling me "memory could not be read, such and such), which stopped after I removed Comodo. In the Explorer connction issue test, it told me I had a winsock problem. I read in various forums that Comodo can destroy your winsock (getting into territory where I'm not real familiar), so I ran Winsockxpfix many times, and also reset the winsock in cmd, but neither helped. Still nothing can connect except for this one Firefox version. I presently only have Windows Firewall running, as well as AVG. I've decided freeware is not worth the pain.

Not sure if it's related, but I've been 0x0000007E (0xC000005), 0x804E2EA0, 0xF8B65BEC,0xF8B658E8 blue screen of death error messages lately as well, periodically. It's real damned aggravating, and I don't know if it's malware or some other registry problem, or if Comodo did, in fact, screw up my system. I'm fed up, but would really like to avoid paying someone $100 to fix it over the phone. I would REALLY appreciate someone's help, and promise I will pay for firewall and antivirus from now on. That is, until I save up enough for a Mac. Many thanks,

Dan

 

Hi plodr, thanks for your reply. I'm sorry, I downloaded Memtes86 but it unzipped as a Sonic file, and is telling me the disk required to use it is unavailable, so don't know what to do. As for the Comodo, I'm not sure exactly which version it was, but the present one on Download.com is 3.0.25.378, so it's probably the prior version as I've had it since last yr. The problems didn't begin until several mos after I installed it (or more).

 

Ok nevermind the Memtest issue... I took out each ram stick individually as you stated, and the computer started up just fine with both. And w the Comodo, I looked for remnants on my hard drive but can't find exactly which version it was, but it must have been prior to this current b/c this one was released on 6/8/08, according to Download.com. Thanks again, I'm appreciating your help here. And no, I am not familiar with CCleaner.

 

The tech helpers here really need to get out of the bad habit of assuming the cause of a stop error.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35246

If you cannot figure it out, attach your minidump files, zipped of course.

Plus lets check to see what your winsock looks like.

Go to start, run, and type msinfo32. Click ok. Then go to Components, Network, Protocol.

Note my screenshot. See the names of the categories? Post yours, there are several.

http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/5403/capturewm6.jpg

 

Hi Adrynalyne, thanks for your help. I installed the debug program, but when when I did the Open Crash Dump, there were no files in there. Am I doing something wrong? I did see that the "write an even to the system" and "send an administrative alert" boxes were not checked, so I checked them

Here are my winsock settings catagory names. Not sure if this is what you wanted or not. Thanks again, this is quite frustrating.

Dan

Name MSAFD Tcpip [TCP/IP]
Name MSAFD Tcpip [UDP/IP]
Name RSVP UDP Service Provider
Name RSVP TCP Service Provider
Name MSAFD Tcpip [TCP/IPv6]
Name MSAFD Tcpip [UDP/IPv6]
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip6_{FF486DF9-1F7B-4B64-8276-0959EB471213}] SEQPACKET 8
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip6_{FF486DF9-1F7B-4B64-8276-0959EB471213}] DATAGRAM 8
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip6_{67C2C54D-C6DA-4818-8A4B-707CB08908D7}] SEQPACKET 9
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip6_{67C2C54D-C6DA-4818-8A4B-707CB08908D7}] DATAGRAM 9
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip6_{78D21B8B-212F-4938-81C6-5F302809C866}] SEQPACKET 10
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip6_{78D21B8B-212F-4938-81C6-5F302809C866}] DATAGRAM 10
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip6_{04DE4F80-6D4D-49E5-9C8D-A3CCD1F058FC}] SEQPACKET 11
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip6_{04DE4F80-6D4D-49E5-9C8D-A3CCD1F058FC}] DATAGRAM 11
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{78D21B8B-212F-4938-81C6-5F302809C866}] SEQPACKET 7
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{78D21B8B-212F-4938-81C6-5F302809C866}] DATAGRAM 7
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{B4CB476A-54E9-4E66-916D-4CDAF44BE1AB}] SEQPACKET 4
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{B4CB476A-54E9-4E66-916D-4CDAF44BE1AB}] DATAGRAM 4
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{67C2C54D-C6DA-4818-8A4B-707CB08908D7}] SEQPACKET 3
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{67C2C54D-C6DA-4818-8A4B-707CB08908D7}] DATAGRAM 3
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{FF486DF9-1F7B-4B64-8276-0959EB471213}] SEQPACKET 0
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{FF486DF9-1F7B-4B64-8276-0959EB471213}] DATAGRAM 0
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{2810EB22-763D-4D0C-9450-64BBD1758685}] SEQPACKET 1
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{2810EB22-763D-4D0C-9450-64BBD1758685}] DATAGRAM 1
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{531D3D38-B38F-4A40-9052-52EFBA55506B}] SEQPACKET 2
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{531D3D38-B38F-4A40-9052-52EFBA55506B}] DATAGRAM 2
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{AD4BD9C6-BDFF-4633-B023-17BCC0FA4263}] SEQPACKET 5
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{AD4BD9C6-BDFF-4633-B023-17BCC0FA4263}] DATAGRAM 5
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{46F9BE29-D683-4536-9D1B-5A992BED97EB}] SEQPACKET 6
Name MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{46F9BE29-D683-4536-9D1B-5A992BED97EB}] DATAGRAM 6


END______________________________________

 

Winsock looks fine; look at my tutorial again, it shows you where the minidumps files are located.

 

Hey Adrynalyne, I looked again in C:/windows/minidump, which exists, but inside it there are no files of any kind. The folder is empty. I tried to upload a screenshot, but at 188k it exceeds the size limit. Any ideas?

 

A screenshot of an empty folder?

Thats ok, I take your word for it. :-D

If you are behind a router, or using cable net access, try SafeMode w. Networking and see if your problem persists.

 

Well, you know... a lot of people (myself included) are way out of their league with this stuff... ;>

So you mean see if I get the BSOD in safe mode w networking, or if I still get an empty crash dump folder?

 

I use an Ativa router, but it gets irritating having to reset it whenever the modem cable gets loose and resets the modem. This problem began while I was not using the router. I use comcast for isp, if that helps anything.

 

and also, the BSOD comes up periodically, not every time, and has also included other codes at different times I've not written down.

What generally causes everything but a single browser version to be blocked from accessing the internet? Is this common?

 

Well, I want you to tr SafeMode w/ Networking to see if the browsing issue is resolved. As for the stop error, does it recur regularly? If its a one time thing, don't worry about it.

The only reason a minidump would not be created is if, you have that particular functionality turned off, or if you have your pagefile on a spearate partition/drive from your OS. On rare occasions, your computer may blue screen and reboot before the file is written.

 

Hey Adrynalyne, so Explorer, Advanced Windows Care, Spyware Blaster and Ewido can all connect to the internet in Safemode w Networking. That's a good feeling. Good call. So what does it mean?

The BSOD has happened semi-regularly over the past several mos. Not every time, but it's definitely happened at least 4x.

 

Ok,. next step.

Try this, and report back with your results.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353

 

Wow, ok, so I did that and now Explorer and my antivirus can connect to the internet. Nice. This is great. I can't believe it's working. It's been such an oppressive problem. I am getting this error at startup: "app failed to initiallize 0x800106ba. a problem caused this program's service to stop. To start the service, restart the computer and search Help Support to start it manually."

 

Ok, so now...start re-enabling what you disabled, but do it systematically, so as to narrow down what is the culprit.

Then you will have your answer as to what did it. Please let us know

 

will do. But before I do that, along w the error message I started getting after disabling those things, I'm now getting an increasingly constant svchost.exe error stating: "The exception Illegal Instruction. An attempt was made to execute an illegal instruction. (0xc000001d) occureed in the application at location 0x5b9ff537. Click OK to terminate, Cancel to debug." I click to terminate, but it just keeps coming back.

 

Lets find the culprit first, then worry about that next.