Computer is online - browser won't load pages

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tburke89

tburke89

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Jan 23, 2013
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I am having this issue on one of my computers on my home network, and on a clients machine at work. Since I am sitting in front of my clients machine now, I will focus on that machine first. It is an older Windows XP Compaq laptop. I am able to ping google with both the IP address and the url. When a web page is attempted to be opened there is a 'page cannot be displayed error'. I have installed Firefox off of a thumb drive and I get the same error. I have reset the wireless adapter, flushed the dns, and ran a netsh winsock reset. It has occured to me that there may be malware on the machine that is redirecting web traffic, although I have not scanned the machine yet.

I am having the same exact problem on my wired network at home, except it is a Windows 7 machine and I cannot remember if I am able to ping websites, but I know that it shows that it is connected to the internet and cannot find any problems when I run a 'repair'. This client has virtually zero data on this machine, so if I can't figure this out in a timely fashion than I am going to reinstall XP on it. I would like to be able to figure out what the issue is though, because I have 1+tb of data on my machine at home that is having this problem.

Thanks.
 
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tburke89

tburke89

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Jan 23, 2013
22
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18,510


I've checked all of the network settings on the computer, everything is okay. I ran ipconfig and the machine is pulling a valid ip address. I rebooted the computer into safe mode with networking and I am able to access the internet okay from IE. I downloaded Malwarebytes Chameleon (which is probably my new favorite utility) and the computer is scanning now. Actually, it just finished. One piece of malware found, PUP.RiskwareTool.CK. I just rebooted and the issue is not resolved. I am running another scan, this time 'Full' instead of 'Quick', and now it is running while this issue is actually present since the machine is no longer in safe mode. I'll post updates as I go, has no one else had this issue? In all my years I have never seen this, and now I have it on two unrelated machines at once.
 
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06yfz450ridr

06yfz450ridr

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Nov 28, 2012
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did you check your host files? ive had this happen on some people laptops. it seems like that dns virus or something. i had to manually remove the hdd and scan it using that special tool to get it to work again as well as another virus scan. also i would try resetting the ie settings as well as entering device manager and uninstalling the network drivers then going to the top and hitting scan for changes which will re install the drivers. sometimes in the end its just a driver acting crazy. i usually have a lot of luck doing that last step and people get really surprised that it fixes their problems
 
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tburke89

tburke89

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Jan 23, 2013
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18,510


Okay, I have uninstalled the wireless adapter and reinstalled, and removed another 6 pieces of malware from the machine. I created a new user account, but unless the computer is in safe mode than the problem persists. I am not taking out the HDD from this laptop to scan it externally, it would be easier for me just to reinstall windows xp. I am downloading an .iso for WinXP because I only have Win7 boot disks lying around. I am really getting frustrated with this - what software would you suggest that I use to scan the hard drive, I would guess that it is a dns virus. Oh, and Windows refuses to do a sysrestore on this POS.
 
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