Vista Internet Connection

Been having trouble with the other PC of late and fiddled with a setting here or there, and lo and behold...no network connection.

Spent most of the day fiddling and glueing my hair back on.


Where to start:

Reset BIOS to failsafe, so I think that can be disregarded for now.
Somehow, the IP addy got changed to the ipv4 auto config thingy. Most annoying. Have changed the IP address on the ipv4 interface to 192.168.xxx.xxx (in line with my router's internal IP), the gateway to match the router's internal IP and the mask to 255.255.255.0

Still nothing. I can ping 127.0.0.1 fine. No ping of the router. Starting to get a little worried. DNS IPs are setup, and the advanced TCP/IP settings match this laptop (DNS setttings: Append primary / append parent / Register connection : WINS settings: LMhosts enabled / NetBIOS on default).

Looking at the network map, for most of the time I had a yellow hazard icon on the pipe between the PC and the Network and a big red 'X' between the Network and the world icon. At one point the yellow hazard had gone and the network was described as an unidentified public network.

I've deleted and re-installed the network interfaces in device manager.

One thing I haven't done is delete the Internet connection and start over. Vista doesn't seem to make that bit too obvious. I'd prefer not to, since I wouldn't have changed any ISP connection settings, and the problem seems to be more config related (no ping).

HEEEEEELLLLPPP!! Heh!

Any ideas appreciated.

P.S. Netstat -r shows plenty of 127.0.0.1 and 192.168.xxx.xxx entries corresponding to my intended IP.

Ta.

Ah ha! I've spotted the likely suspect, but not the solution.

When I ping the router from the laptop I get told the router IP replies etc.

When I ping with the PC, although I ping the router's IP, the IP in the ping info is the PC's IP. Weird.

...and no surprise that the destination IP is unreachable.

Suggestions?

B-B-Bump!

Change your static IP, DNS, gateway etc back to automatic.
Open a Command prompt, type ipconfig /all and hit enter. What output do you get?

C:\Windows\system32>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8168B/8111B Family PCI-E Gigab
it Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.0) #2
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1F-D0-81-04-D5
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::adf5:282f:5121:4e9b%14(Preferred)
Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.78.155(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 268443600
DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-11-59-D9-1A-00-1F-D0-9B-55-FE

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1
fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1
fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8168B/8111B Family PCI-E Gigab
it Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.0)
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1F-D0-9B-55-FE
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 7:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : isatap.{735E3CE7-C0FE-476D-8117-774434F33
5FA}
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 13:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : isatap.{D8E151C1-C0E1-49CE-9625-2B8C62F91
278}
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 11:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 02-00-54-55-4E-01
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

C:\Windows\system32>

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8168B/8111B Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.0) #2
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1F-D0-81-04-D5
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::adf5:282f:5121:4e9b%14(Preferred)
Autoconfiguration IPv4 Address. . : 169.254.78.155(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 268443600
DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-11-59-D9-1A-00-1F-D0-9B-55-FE

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1
fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1
fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

A 169.x.x.x address means Windows is not seeing the DHCP server/router.. Can you login to the router from another machine and see if the router sees this machine (in a section named 'Connected Devices' or something like that)?

Is it possible to tell us the exact 192.168.xxx.xxx addresses that you are using for your computers and router? (It's not a security risk as these are non-routable addresses - in fact there are millions of computers and routers woldwide using the same addresses.) It's probably irrelevant, but it may just help to pin your problem down.

sounds to me like youv'e ran the "home network setup wizard" and it thinks your PC is the default gateway to the internet

from a command prompt do a ROUTE PRINT <enter> and see if there are any persistent routes

That's what I was expecting. The 169.254.x.x address range is known as an Automatic Private IP Address or APIPA. It is assigned by the OS when an IP address cannot be gained via DHCP and it allows basic networking features. It tells us that your system is set to automatically gain an IP address but for whatever reason, can't.
The problem at the moment is that I don't have a Vista box to hand so you'll have to wait until I get to one a little later, wait until someone else comes along or, as has been said, temporarily set up a static IP address for that machine. First of all though, double check your router settings.

To set up a static IP, under the IPV4 tab, enter the following details:
IP Address: 192.168.0.66
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
DNS: 192.168.0.1
Default Gateway: 192.168.0.1

The above assumes that your router lives at 192.168.0.1. If it doesn't, change the IP, DNS and Gateway accordingly.
Reboot and see what happens. Hopefully, I'll be able to get to a Vista box before the evening is out.

I can categorically confirm to all that the PC's IP address was fine prior to the ipconfig reset. For example if my router is:

192.168.0.1

my laptop would be:

192.168.0.2

and the PC

192.168.0.3

and so on. The DNS IPs were fine too. Prior to the ipconfig reset, a ping went as follows:

PC (192.168.0.3): Ping 192.168.0.1

Reply from 192.168.0.3 etc.

?????

Wierd.