Connected but not connected

[smoked15]

Hello,

I have a weird situation and I have not been able to find a solution fot it yet.
I don't even know where to start, so I'll start from what I think would be the beginning.

I have a 3 year old Windows XP laptop. I have always been able to connect it to my home network until recently that it's been giving me problems.
One day it was working fine, the next it would connect but it wouldn't browse the net. I kept on getting the "page not found" message; messenger didn't connect; Windows Update wouldn't download updates; even though it said it was connected. I tried "Repair Connection" and it would get stuck on refreshing the IP address.

The only thing that changed from one day to the other was a registry cleanup performed with PerfectSpeed PC Optimizer.

As soon as I started experiencing this, I googled the issue and found a "registry fix" for it. After running an application that would allegedly fix the registry, I still had the issue.

I debugged for hours and tried several fixes posted on forums but no luck.
One approach was to restore the registry with the backup made by PerfectSpeed before the cleanup, but it still didn't work.
I then restored my PC to a few days prior the cleanup to no avail.
Since it was at least connecting, I was able to ping www.google.com, which resulted from 0% loss to 100% loss inconsistently. I pinged sites dozens of times, giving different loss rates every time.

It sounded like the router was not sending a strong connection to the PC, and I thought that was the issue. But I have 2 other XP laptops that connect and browse without a problem and 1 windows 7 desktop with a wireless receiver that also works just fine (that's where I'm typing this). Nonetheless, I still debugged the router... I turned off both the laptop and the router. Turned on the PC first and then the router, but nothing. I turned them off again and turned on the router first and then the PC, but nothing. I reset the router to factory settings, and nothing. So it didn't seem like the router was the issue.

I then thought that Windows was corrupt, but after running sfc /scannow, chkdsk, fdisk and God knows what else, I still had the problem(At this point I was just guessing). I was thinking I had to reinstall windows. But then, I remembered that my laptop was dual boot with Vista Pro, so I booted on Vista and no luck, it was still having connectivity problems.

The last thing I could think of was that the wireless card was bad, so I went ahead and bought a new one for 8 bucks online.
While I was waiting for it, I decided to take the laptop to my friend's house and try to connect to his wireless. To my surprise, it worked just fine on both XP and Vista. I then took it to school, and it worked. I took it to Starbucks and it also worked. I brought it back home, and same behavior, connected but not connected.

I think my router is the problem, but I have managed to connect 4 other laptops at once and they all work perfectly, except the one in question. (And I have obviously turned them all off and tried one at a time).

I think I'm receiving my new wireless card tomorrow, but something tells me I wasted 8 bucks as my laptop connects to other wireless networks just fine.

I'm officially out of ideas... Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[eibgrad]

Hmm, a perplexing case. I’m not sure anyone is going to a have a definitive “yep, that’s what’s causing your problem” response. At least not until you can narrow the field of possibilities. Right now I (like you) have no clue if it’s the laptop, router, or wireless. That’s just too many variables. But I have a few ideas about other things you could do to narrow that field and flush out the culprit.

The first one that struck me immediately was that all of this seems to revolve (so far) around wireless. What happens if you connect the laptop via WIRE?

Also, the more details about your network you can provide, the better. You just never know if someone might have seen similar problems w/ the same equipment. The more you can tell us about the make and model (even firmware releases) of router, wireless network adapters, laptop, etc., the better.

 

[smoked15]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention about wired connections.
The internet works just fine if I connect it directly to either the modem or the router with a wire.
I'm not too savvy on routers, so I hope the information I give you is not considered obvious or stupid
My router is a Netgear WGR614. I believe it has the latest firmware updates because every time I log on to it (192.168.1.1) the first thing it does is check for new releases and install them. It is updated as of last week.
As far as I know, the wireless network is G (I hope that's what you are asking for lol) but you can get more info about the router on Netgear's Page
My laptop is an HP DV6000 with Windows XP Pro SP3 and Vista SP2 (I believe). The specs on this page cover most of the details of my PC. Maybe a few differences on RAM, GPU and OS, but everything else is pretty much the same.

I hope I answered your questions. If not, let me know and I'll try harder .

Thanks!

 

[eibgrad]

It almost sounds like the problem might be environmental. As if that laptop in that particular location is having problems. Have you tried it from numerous locations in the home? Perhaps moving the router around as well. Anything to shake things up a bit.

Did you introduce anything new to that laptop that maybe you're forgetting, like a wireless mouse, bluetooth adapter, etc.?

I have another idea. It's a bit of a hassle to setup, but I'd like to see how it responds to another WAP (wireless access point). Disable the wireless radio on the router. Using a Windows 7 machine, run an Ethernet cable to the router, install Connectify and configure the wireless adapter as a WAP, enable ICS on the wired connection, and finally have the laptop use that as its gateway. Let's see what happens.

http://www.connectify.me/

 

[smoked15]

Solved!
It was in fact the card. I installed the new one and the internet is working just fine. I bet it was working at all those other places because the network was stronger. My friend has wireless N and so do the school where I go to and starbucks, so i guess that made a difference.
Thanks for all your help eibgrad!

 

[smoked15]

Best answer selected by smoked15.

 

[adnanalavi]

I have installed windows xp many times and never faced any issue with ethernet card but WiFi always use to trouble. Yesterday first time my ethernet started the problem now I am stuck. No WiFi no Ethernet.

I then connected my router with another device and removed the security - no password required. WiFi got connected, quickly downloaded SP2, now WiFi is working fine but ethernet card is still showing me error