I know that I am probably just doing something dumb but I just cannot figure it out.

I have a Sony Laptop...It came with Vista Personal installed.
I wanted to back up the OS to XP so I wiped the hard drive.
When I did this, I found that some of the components did not have XP compatible drivers and I would have trouble finding any.
I went back and tried 2 different versions of Vista.
I have tried the 64 bit version and I am now back on the 32 bit version.

The problem is that, since I wiped XP, I cannot get this laptop to connect to the internet.

My home lan is set up like this...
I have the Time-Warner cable modem connected to a Linksys router.
There is a D-Link 8 port (2208) switch connected off one port of the router and each PC is connected to a port of the switch.
All of the other PC's work fine...but I will add that all but one of them is XP. The only other
Vista I have is a wireless connection to the router.

The wired lan connection on the Sony worked fine before I wiped the hard drive.
It also worked after I wiped the hard drive and installed XP.
Usually, with XP, I can just connect the Ethernet cable and it will just auto-connect to the internet.

I will add that while I know a fair amount about networking and XP, I know next to nothing about Vista. This may be a common problem...I have no idea.
I do know that I cannot find the answer after hours of searching.

Also..I have bypassed the the lan and connected the Ethernet port directly to the cable modem. This did not allow me to get to the internet either.
Other things that I have tried are....
-Different cables.
-I downloaded and installed the actual driver for the wire lan card in the laptop.
-I did try manually assigning an IP to the laptop. This did allow me to see other laptops on my lan...but not access the internet.
-I have confirmed that IE does have the "Obtain IP" option selected.
-I have tried Firefox as well as IE.
-I have confirmed that the Wireless card is turned off.
-I also read somewhere to unclick the IPV6 option and to change the port speed of the port from auto-negotiate to hard code.

I am just running out of ideas.

Has anybody seen this before? What is the fix?

Thanks

2/22/2009 10:20:38 PM

Quote :

"I will add that while I know a fair amount about networking and XP, I know next to nothing about Vista."

if you knew a fair bit about networking you'd be giving us real data that could actually help you. what you just typed was a page of absolutely useless information.

vista and XP are not that much different.

2/22/2009 10:25:54 PM

OK...let's say then that I know just enough about networking to get myself into trouble.

Actually, I did not post much more about the network because I figured that there is a Vista option that needed to be checked...or unchecked in order to get this to work.
And...I also said..I know next to nothing about Vista.

I am not sure what you are looking for in information.
Perhaps if you would simply tell me what info you are looking for and not just take a swipe at me.
My Lan is a typical Class C setup that a home network would have.

I can not ping the router from the Sony. I doubt that this is the problem however because, as I said, I bypassed the switch and the router when I connected directly to the cable modem and this did not work either.

[Edited on February 22, 2009 at 10:50 PM. Reason : .]

2/22/2009 10:48:44 PM

^^ what he said

Can you connect to your router eg like the management client via a webpage?

Have you tried another computer with this setup? Same cables and all. Might be a router issue with the port its connected to. Does wireless work at all? You said you had it disabled.

Also might not be a Vista issue and might be bad NIC on the machine itself.

That aside, if you manually set an IP, and were able to see computers, you have some config issues. Sounds like you arnt getting anything dhcp based, which leads to DNS issues which is why you cant get to the internet. with a static set IP, can you ping anything outside your home network (eg google.com)?

EDIT

normally a modem with something different plugged into it requires a reset. did you?


[Edited on February 22, 2009 at 10:51 PM. Reason : !]

2/22/2009 10:50:48 PM

You have given me a couple of ideas Yoda.
But here are the answers to your questions.

I have tried to connect to a few web pages with the laptop....nothing.
I can not ping or access the router at all with this laptop.
I tend to think that it is not the NIC card hardware issue as it was working fine on the original Vista and again when I installed XP.
I did not reset the Cable modem when I connected directly to it. I will try that in the am.
As far as the ports on the switch and router.....I actually took the Ethernet connection from another PC and that PC works fine so I know that the cables and ports on the switch and Router are good.

I suspect you are right that this is a config issue.
And no.. when I set the static IP, I could get to any PC on another port of the switch...but I could not ping or hit anything either on another port of the router or beyond. I tried to ping the router's IP, Google and yahoo..nothing worked.

I suspect that there is some config in Vista that is not allowing the router assign the Sony an IP.
I just can not figure out why it would not work when I manually assigned and IP then..

[Edited on February 22, 2009 at 11:13 PM. Reason : .]

2/22/2009 11:10:44 PM

youd be suprised how easy NICs burn out. I see it all the time. I doubt since you got a static ip to work that its that though.

if its a config, the modem direct connection may not work as well.

is it giving you a private ip address when its connected? like 169.x.x.x?

when you did the static, did you properly set up the gateway, subnet, and dns servers?

2/22/2009 11:16:38 PM

Load up a Linux LiveCD ... if the computer still cannot connect to the internet, your NIC is fried.

There is no secret option in Vista to enable or disable the internet, there is a much simpler answer, and it's likely hardware related. So get back to us after you have confirmed that it's not a hardware issue.

The next step will be to download new drivers from your NIC manufacturer.

[Edited on February 23, 2009 at 12:26 AM. Reason : .]

2/23/2009 12:25:51 AM

4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.3 are pingable public dns servers.

Quote :

"I did not reset the Cable modem when I connected directly to it. I will try that in the am."

this will probably get you online.

2/23/2009 1:31:54 AM

This has absolutely nothing to do with Vista. You've screwed the pooch in drivers, configuration, IP conflicts or some other aspect of your setup.

Put the ORIGINAL Vista Home Premium (there is no such thing as Vista Personal) back on the laptop. Use the Sony restoration discs/partition.

Then see if it works.

2/23/2009 2:03:13 AM

I am at work right now but I will post my test results when I get home this evening.

As far as hosing up the configs….I do not deny that the configs might be hosed. If they are however, they were hosed from a clean install.
I did make some changes but this was not working from the time the new install came up and before I made any config changes.
And I did go to Sony and get the drivers for this NIC card. It did occur to me that the Vista driver might be giving me some trouble.

Also..I should mention…there are no disc with the laptop. It did not come with any.

And Yoda….I am not at the PC right now so I do not know the entire IP. I do know that you are correct and it started with 169.xxx.xxxx.xxx
It stuck with me because I thought it odd that it would have that when my lan is a class C 192.168.15.0/25 subnet.

And yes, when I manually configured the IP, I did include the subnet mask and the gateway.

It was
IP 192.168.15.136
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
Gateway 192.168.15.1

And yes, my router’s IP is 192.168.15.1


So when I get home today, the thing I will try is…
-Reconnect the NIC to the cable modem….reset the cable modem and then try to ping 4.2.2.2 and 4.2.2.3.


Any other suggestions on what I should try?
And Yoda…is there any benefit of knowing the entire IP beyond 169.x.x.x?


Thanks all

2/23/2009 9:30:26 AM

Quote :

"And Yoda…is there any benefit of knowing the entire IP beyond 169.x.x.x?"

no

2/23/2009 9:37:07 AM

Just to follow up.
Last night I did connect back to the cable modem and reset the modem this time.
I could get both IE and Firefox to work.

I am still at a loss as to why this will not see the router...and yes I did go back and try the router again after the cable modem.
I am contacting Sony today to see if I can get the OEM disc for this thing.

2/24/2009 8:14:43 AM