Computers will not acquire an IP Address...

Hello all!

I've been puzzling over this one for 2 days now and I can't come up with any solution to the problem. By reading the forums here it would seem that a few have had the same difficultly with their computers as well. I'm hopeful that by explaining all the steps I've taken that someone with more knowledge then myself might have a good solution besides reformating the hard drive.

Basically these computers are not mine but belong to a realative. These are business computers that have a large amount of information and programs on them that make reformating a less then ideal way of solving things. I do have more then a basic understanding of computers, more then the average person, but I do feel that I am lacking alot and I'm by no means an expert.

Anyhow on to the problem...

It's my understanding that the Laptop (a Dell Inspiron 1300) stopped connecting to the internet for an unknown reason, then 3 weeks later a personal computer (a Dell Dimension DE051) reacted exactly the same. The two are not on any network and are never connected together so there is no transfer of information between the two.

Internet is not a major necessity for the work that these computers do but it is required for updates and upgrades for programs so they are normally connected by Dial-up. I on the other hand am attempting to connect them by high speed cable, the laptop has been connected on my modem before and connected to dialup afterwards without issues. The personal computer has never been on highspeed before. Both computers are reacting exactly the same with both connections. They appear to be online but are not sending or recieving any information/packets what so ever.

It would seem that they are not acquiring an IP address and this is the cause for not actually having a connection. I have a few computers on a router, so when I discovered the lack of an IP I bypassed the router to connect straight to the modem to remove it as a part of the problem. Then disconnected everthing, and turned off the router to reboot/reset the connection to remove the ISP as the problem. The two Dell computers still will not acquire a IP address. My own computers are still working fine. It is not the ISP or the Router.

So I did a "Run>Cmd>ipconfig" to dicover what was there and this is what it said...

Connection-specific DNS Suffix.:
IP Address............................: 192.168.x.x
Subnet mask.........................: 255.255.255.0
Default gateway....................:

Both the Default gateway and the DNS suffix were blank. I know the IP Address suggests that I was connected to a router still but I was directly connected to the modem without being connected to the router.

I then tried a "ipconfig /release" and a "ipconfig /renew" and with both times I recieved this message... "The operation failed as no adaptor is in the state permissible for this operation.". I tried again with the router and the results were the same.

I then tried a "Run>netsh winsock reset all" with no results.

Lastly I did a Run>regedit then navagated HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/currentcontrolset/Services and deleted the Winsock and the Winsock2 files, then shut down the computer and started it back up. Again, no results...

The ipconfig now reads...

Connection-specific DNS Suffix.:
IP Address............................: 0.0.0.0
Subnet mask.........................: 0.0.0.0
Default gateway....................:

Both the "ipconfig /release" and the "ipconfig /renew" have the exact same results with the same message, "The operation failed as no adaptor is in the state permissible for this operation.".

The computer still says it's connected to the internet, but is still not sending or recieving anything. It's not connecting at all.

I contacted Dell support by phone and they ran me through the exact same steps with the same results then said the only option left was to reformat the hard drive.

If anyone has any ideas as to another solution or even what might be the cause of this, I would appreciate it a tremendous amount. Thank you!

PS; Sorry that this was so long but I thought it would be best to be thorough.

 

It's probably your relatives' router or the modem. Try contacting your ISP (internet service provider) and see what they. Also, try resetiing the notebook's connection with the router.

 

It reacts the same on two different types of connections, both dial-up and high speed cable. Both of the connections have other computers on them that work perfectly. I've tried resetting with the modem and the router and it just doesn't acquire an IP Address. Even with Dial-up, it thinks it's connected but has no IP Address so it isn't actually connected. I'm out of ideas on how to force it to acquire one.

 

Check to see if it's trying to connect through a proxy, is so uncheck it. Since these connect through a router, pull the DNS and gateway info from your working pc, and do a manual setup. If you running firewalls, disable and see if that helps. I had an update on my firewall kill all of my connections and had to uninstall and reinstall. Also make sure the connection info is in the router including the cloned MAC address. If not soething may have got reset and kicked off. If your using MAC Filtering, disable and see if that helps.

No by chance if your using Symantic and it's service expired, your screwed. It messes a pc up so bad you will be forced to reload. I have seen this numerous times. Since sysmantic loads its own files and change all of the pointers I have found no easy fix, except to reload. Even renewing does not fix the problems it generates, the reason I do not recommend it, besides requiring 1/2 of the pc resources to run.

 

With your highspeed connection go into the router and make sure the DHCP connection settings are correct on it so that it will assign the computers an IP. Also right click on My Computer, go down to Services and Applications, Services, and make sure that your DHCP service on the computer is running.

 

A direct connect may not work if his ISP registered the MAC address of the PC used to setup the account. Most do use this process for controlling access. With a router in place that can and should be cloned into the router.

 

Ok, that never even occured to me. Yes Symantic is on there by default. It is on both the PC and Notebook. I will take a look, since the warranty for both systems has run out, it would be logical that so has Symantic. Thankyou Blue.
The only down side, restoring means having to fight with and wipe Roxio again, that was a mess and it will be the demon that comes back to haunt me with the restore of both systems. That and the massive amount of files I must back up.