Sporadically losing Internet connection

Hello,

I have a LAN with two laptops running Windows XP and two desktops running Windows 2000. The two laptops connect to the router wirelessly, the desktops are wired. While wirelessly browsing the internet on one laptop in particular, I will suddenly lose my ability to browse the internet. At this same time, the other laptop can connect just fine, and the two desktops are ok as well. So, the router seems ok so far. I have tried different browsers, and none can connect to the internet. I can still connect to shared drives on the desktops, so it isn't my wireless network card. I can ping google no problem. I cannot browse to 192.168.1.1 which is my router address. So, based on my meager understanding of network issues, it looks like my outbound port 80 is blocked for this particular laptop? I think I am running the Windows firewall on this laptop but nothing in the settings leads me to believe it is blocking outbound port 80. Oh, and a reboot of the computer fixes the issue. For a while. I can go days or weeks before it will happen again. I would like to be able to fix this issue without rebooting or better yet, fix it so it doesn't happen anymore. I have yet to log in to my router to see if any settings jump out at me that could be causing the problem. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I should go about troubleshooting and fixing this issue?

Thanks.

 

I would maybe try updating the drivers for the Wireless Card on that particular machine. You can find those drivers at the manufactures website.

For example, if you bought the laptop from Dell, you can go to Dell's website, Drivers and Downloads, enter your service tag number and be given a list of drivers.

On the other hand I've seen some Internet Security Center software cause random issues like this. Do you happen to have Norton, McAffee or Trend Micro software on your system.

Hope this helps...

 

Hi,

Thanks for responding. I'll try the Wireless Card driver update and see if that works.

I do have Norton Internet Security on my machine, but I have it disabled. I believe I am only running the regular Windows firewall. In both of those apps, I don't see anything blatantly obvious that port 80 should be blocked.

Over the weekend, I lost connection again, and I opened up Task Manager to see if there were any strange processes running that might be blocking port 80. I googled each of the processes and nothing seemed malicious. So, I started killing processes to see if I could find one that might be blocking port 80. I started with all of the Norton related processes, but I still couldn't get an internet connection. Then, I started killing the processes related to dell and verizon and DVD drive-related processes and Windows Media Player processes... all that gobbledegook that runs in the background that isn't needed. Still no connection. So then I started ending processes that are more important until I killed a svchost.exe process that caused my machine to reboot. Killing the processes didn't seem to help my internet connectivity.

I hope this tale provides a bit more information about my issue. I'll give the drivers update a try some time this week.

Thanks.

 

Hi 0PapaBear0,

This is Mike from the Norton Authorized Support Team.

The Norton Firewall is superior to the Windows Firewall, as it offers many customizations and protection for both inbound and outbound traffic. You could have possibly had both the Windows and Norton Firewalls running at the same time which can cause conflicts. The rule of thumb is that you never want to have more than one Firewall and one real-time security program installed to avoid conflicts.

You do not mention which version of Norton Internet Security you are using, and the 2010 version has been recently released. As long as you have a valid subscription, you are entitled to a free update to the 2010 version, which is strongly encouraged.

If you do need to update, please visit the Norton Update Center at the link below. The update and installation processes are simple and do not take much time.

Norton Update Center

Once you have updated, or if you are already using the 2010 version, disable the Windows Firewall and then enable the Norton Firewall. Port 80 is open by default, so what I would suggest that you do is to reset the Norton Firewall to it's default settings and that should resolve the issue.

Let me know if this process does not resolve the issue and I can assist you further.

Thanks,
Mike

 

Thanks for the reply. The Norton Internet Security I have is from 2004, and I only had a 90 day trial. I have no plans of updating or buying the latest Norton. Based on the troubleshooting I have performed so far, I don't even think this is a firewall issue, unless something is just flat-out malfunctioning. But, I welcome any other info or suggestions you may have. Thanks again.