All outgoing connections dead.

I've seen this skirted upon in a couple of threads, where a user is browsing the internet one minute, then the next they cant raise anything external.

Scenario:

Browsing the internet late one evening, turn off and go to bed. Wake up in the morning turn computer on, connect to the internet (i.e. your ISP) and try to open a webpage. 'Page cannot be displayed' emblazened in front of me.

Also, when trying to connect to my site server via ftp, cannot get a connection. All ping requests time out.

What it looks like is something is blocking all outgoing connections, also from one machine to another.

My first thought is my firewall. Software firewall - McAffee. Whether it is up or down it doesnt make any difference.

Next, a virus? Run virus-scan (up to date) and finds nothing.

Spyware? I have Ad-aware, and nothing.

Hosts file? Bare, nothing being filtered.

Alternate browser? Also cannot connect.

Puzzled, I disconnect my first PC and fire up my second - attached to the same connection and it can view pages fine. ISP is fine.

USB adsl modem on both machines, both running XP home and pro. Both up to date with patches etc.

Cleared all temp files and cache, and nothing.

Searched for random programs running in the background - nothing.

Rebooted and turned off for a day or so, reconnect with problem machine, and still cant get anything.

Internet connections settings are all as default and my IP settings are all normal.

I can connect via the handshaking to my ISP, but cant get any further.

Suggestions for something I havent thought of?

I've since reformatted the machine, and reinstalled everything and it is working fine, but I'd be greatful for ideas.

Did you try the old stand by of ipconfig \release
ipconfig \renew


also make sure all your networking services are up and running, ie. DHCP, DNS, WINS


best I can think of, it sounds like it has to do with the machine itself, you can also try to take the nic card out of the machine that can connect and swap it with the other machine, see if you can get on with that and visa versa


good luck hope I've helped ya

Will try the ipconfig if it happens again, will get a print out of this thread if anyone else has anything to add.

Not sure about all of the services being up, and the nic card would only help with networking my two machines, as I said my modem is a USB which goes straight into the mobo of both machines.

It also happened on my laptop - I can only presume that it is some as yet unknown spyware / virus from one of the sites I frequent.

Thanks for your reply.

My first guess is something must have got screwed at lower software levels. Try removing your connection, uninstalling your network support (protocols, adapters), reboot and reinstall. Reboot and try connecting again. Also check C:\netlog.txt (if it exists on XP, I'm not sure) for pointers on the error you're getting.

Thinking about it - it seems to occur after I download a large file, perhaps a hundred meg or over.

Files are from known sources, when trying to open the completed download the whole machine seems to slow to a snails pace (even right clicking any large file results in the window 'Not responding')

Afterwards, something seems screwy.

Again, I will try the suggestions above if it happens again.

Thanks bassman :)