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Question

Internet connected but not working?

by Jun 20, 2015 11:06AM PDT

This is my first time posting because I can usually figure out what to do when something doesn't work but I'm kinda stumped right now:
A friend of mine has this weird thing happening to his computer where it's completely as if his internet works (pinging works and such), but no applications can actually connect with the internet.
He's using some kind of wifi-adapter and every other device connected works perfectly.

I've tried some things such as:
- Removing McAfee
- Resetting the ip
- Updating drivers

The specs I know of (and could be relevant):
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 750
- Windows 7 (64 bit)

Thanks in advance.

Discussion is locked

4 Posts
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Answer
Re: Internet
by Forum moderator Jun 20, 2015 11:45AM PDT

That's a little bit vague. You can ping a site via an ip-address and you can ping a site via the url. In a browser you can visit a site via an ip-address and you visit a site via the url.
Moreover, you don't really "connect" to Internet. You send a ping-request or you send a HTML GET-request, and that's it, more or less.
So it's rather unclear what works and what doesn't.

- How did you remove McAfee (uninstall or removal tool)?
- Does it work in "Safe Mode with network"?
- Any firewall active (including the Windows one)?
- Does it work if you connect via an Ethernet cable?
- When did it last work and what changed since that moment? Can you go back to it with System Restore?
- What exactly does "cannot connect mean". What error message in what program?
- Does ftp work? See an example in http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/tasks/ftp2.4.2.1.1.html; run ftp from the command prompt. If logged in, don't forget to logout with bye.
- Any malware present ( check with MBAM and an antivirus cd)

Kees

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Re: Re: Internet
by Bart Bart Jun 20, 2015 12:00PM PDT

Additional information I should've maybe added:
- There taskbar displays it as if there's a perfect connection.
- It's kind of a flickering thing, it just stops randomly.
- Some moron 15yr old somehow found a way to block his internet, I have no idea how but I suspect some DDoS software.
- I don't really have physical access to the computer, it's kinda a long distance thing and they don't know enough about this kinda stuff to do this themselves.

To answer your questions:
- It was removed using appwiz.cpl (so uninstall), but mcafee usually only gives problems because it's actively blocking your internet access which a simple uninstall should prevent.
- If you're asking if it's launched in safe mode, no.
- Only windows' firewall
- I don't think they actually have an ethernet cable they can test it with, considering he's using wifi for a gaming computer.
- The last time it functioned was before the kid started his shenanigans.
- Pretty much standard errors such as 'not connected to the internet' in chrome and 'can't connect to the steam servers' on steam
- Your link doesn't seem to be working, so no idea.
- I've only tried MBAM, again because of the no physical access

Bart

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Re: Internet
by Kees_B Forum moderator Jun 20, 2015 2:49PM PDT

The forum software indeed include my semicolon as last position in the url. If you remove that from the address bar in your browser it should work. But it probably won't help given the situation.

If you know that somebody (that kid) did something, then either System Restore or a new user account might work. If you don't know how he did it, it's kind of difficult to tell how to undo it. Going back to factory conditions is a rather big step.

Anyway, once it works again that kid should be given a non-administrator account on the PC (and a cheap tablet maybe to use Internet), with all administrator accounts on the PC protected by a good password.

Kees

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Re: Re: Internet
by Bart Bart Jun 21, 2015 6:07AM PDT

Right now I'm having him do a couple more virus scans and if those don't work I'm pretty sure I'll just have him restore his computer.

The kid didn't have access to the computer however, that's why I suspect some kind of virus infested DDoS software or something.
He probably used some site to get his ip and then just ran that through some sort of software.

Bart

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