XP:HE and DHCP

[Vincent]

My mum's having some probs with her internet (1Mb broadband) and she's been told to reinstall the DHCP Client in Windows XP Home Edition.

I've been all over the m$ support/knowledge base and can only find how to do it in Win2k/NT/Server2k3.  Absolutely none of these works in XP.

I know that SP1 will fix some problems with the DHCP Client, but I'd like to try reinstalling it first just incase SP1 doesn't fix the problem.

Any ideas?

[Vincent]

Can't connect to the net at all.  She can see the SURFboard Cable Modem.  But there's no signal going out past the modem - got a firewall installed and that's not coming up for anything.  Even stopped running the firewall and there's nothing.

Been through viruses, spyware.

Network adapters playing funny buggers (all installed ok).

DNS Errors.

Erm, can't think of anything else at the moment - brain fried.

She can still connect through dial-up.

Phoned Telewest (the provider) they went through quite a lot of possibilities.  None of them made a difference, but there was something about DHCP problem with Windows XP Home Edition Second Edition (what's the difference between SE and normal?).  Don't know which version she has.

She doesn't have SP1 or SP2 (easily remedied - I've got them on CD here).

PC coming my way tomorrow, won't be speaking to her or trying anything until then.  But the more good answers today the more I can try tomorrow :-)

[Vincent]

Tried the stuff on:

How to reset Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) in Windows XP (thanks T-Bone)

"Ipconfig" Command Reports IP Address 0.0.0.0

She doesn't have an IP of 0.0.0.0 anymore, but I thought it might be worth a try anyway.

[Vincent]

mikeymike wrote:
Modem not installed properly?  Dead modem?  Try completely uninstalling it and reinstalling.

Modem appears to be fine on all accounts.

We were able to connect for about 10 mins to download ad-aware, spybot, sygate firewall and avg.

Before that it didn't work, after that it didn't work.  Nothing was changed at all.

I don't know if I can run diagnostics (I'll wait until tomorrow)

Been uninstalled and reinstalled a total of about 7 times in the last few days.  Everytime the modem is fine, but the Blueyonder stuff can't connect to the net to install stuff.

[Vincent]

LinchpiN wrote:
Vince. If its a surfboard modem, power it down, remove coax, power up modem. Release / Renew the IP adress, should switch to 192.xxx.xxx.xxx (internal DHCP on modem). If not, something is borked ...

As in... do netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt without the connection?

[Vincent]

Have I told thee lately how much I {bleep}ING HATE WINDOWS :pissed:

:-P

[Vincent]

I'll hop onto IRC tomorrow - mum's leaving it alone tonight and I'll be getting it around 2 tomorrow :-)

[Vincent]

Hammer wrote:
Are you referring "Windows XP Home Edition Second Edition" as "Windows XP Home with SP2 Edition"?  

I wasn't convinced it existed.  I'm not referring to it, that's exactly what the telewest guy said to my mum.

[Vincent]

They could see the modem from the other end.

No router either - just one pc and a cable modem.

When the pc arrives here I'm going to try the modem with this pc (exactly the same modem).  If it doesn't work we'll know it's the modem.

[Vincent]

LinchpiN wrote:
Vince. If its a surfboard modem, power it down, remove coax, power up modem. Release / Renew the IP adress, should switch to 192.xxx.xxx.xxx (internal DHCP on modem). If not, something is borked ...

Right, got the PC here (the state of this room is unspeakable ;-) ).  She forgot to bring the modem though :lol:

But anyways, I've tried it with mine...

WITHOUT the external cable connected IPConfig gives me:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix:
Autoconfiguration of IP Address:  0.0.0.0
Subnet Mask:  0.0.0.0
Default Gateway:

I thought that's not right, so I tried it again after about 10 seconds (thought maybe I didn't give it enough time to power up):

Connection-specific DNS Suffix:
Autoconfiguration of IP Address:  169.254.85.104
Subnet Mask:  255.255.0.0
Default Gateway:

Now, this modem is working with my PC (thankfully or I wouldn't be able to post this).

WITH the ext cable connected (ie should be online) I got exactly (that's exactly) the same result.  I waited longer before trying the IPConfig command but I still got nothing and 0.0.0.0 the first time, then I got the same 169.254 blah blah for the second result.

I can't connect to the net on that PC but I can on this one.

[Vincent]

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=299357

Would posting the log from doing that help in any way?

It's about 40 lines (although more on here with the wordwrap).

[Vincent]

Okay...

Now that I've been playing around with it for an hour or two here's something I didn't quite notice before (I swear it wasn't there before, but with all the back and forward testing the modem I might not've noticed, but then again my mum never mentioned it when I asked what was there...).  We have 3 things in the Network Connections window.

Network Bridge
1394 Connection
Local Area Connection

Viewing by Details shows that they are ALL Network Bridges.  There's not one LAN or High-Speed Internet there.

Also, the Blueyonder install CD only picks up on 1394 Connection.  It complains that it is not bound to TCP/IP and it explains how to do this (right click -> properties -> tick TCP/IP).  This doesn't work as there is no TCP/IP option (there's no small white window with the 3/4 things in it at all).

The same happens with the Local Area Connection, but with the Network Bridge we get the small white window with the options.  The TCP/IP is already ticked.

The Local Area Connection is the only one that is affected by the modem being plugged in (red cross if it's not), the others are apparently always connected.

--edit--

Seems like I can't create a new connection at all...

Any ideas?

--edit2--

Deleted the Network Bridge and everything seems fine until I try to connect - still no luck.  Sygate isn't even coming up to say something's trying to connect :-?

[Vincent]

That was one of the first things done after getting spyware/viruses checked.

Absolutely nothing wrong with any of the devices according to that.

--edit--

I should've said in the previous post - after deleting the Network Bridge the TCP/IP selection (and the other 2/3 choices) appeared in both the Local Area Connection and in the 1394 Connection Property windows.

[Vincent]

Should've posted this on Wednesday, but I kept forgetting ;-)

I reinstalled everything using the Compaq restore CDs (I wish they came with every PC - so much easier than reinstalling everything seperately).  And the Network adapter refused to work with the modem (my modem and cables) so I switched to USB and it worked perfectly.

Took the PC back round to mums on Weds, hooked it all up to her modem etc and it was online within 10 minutes (installed the Blueyonder CD just to make sure).

Feck knows what the initial problem actually was, but at least it's working now.  And she only had 600MB of stuff to back up :-D