Internet Connection .... or is it?

Culchie

Hi,

A little bit hard to explain, as it is for my father in law, who recently bought a lap top, and lives other end of country, but he rang me last night with a problem. (he is not at all computer literate)

Last time I was home for the weekend, I set him up all, ready to go with his internet and e-mail stuff. I tested it and checked that he had access (dial-up connection), set up some favourites and shortcuts etc.... The computer was working fine.

When he is dialling in, he is being brought to his 'home page' fine (google.ie), but then if he types an address into the browser or tries to pull up one of his 'favourites', it is not connecting or finding the page..... it just does nothing.

The only thing that we can think (over the phone) that has gone wrong in the meantime, is that a neighbour installed 'zonealarm' and this may be preventing connection.

Any ideas?

roamer

It sounds like you possibly have a dns problem. Have you checked to see if the isp is having problems?
i assume its using a dynamic ip address. This will also mean that his gateway server (dns) is configured automatically.

Get him to go to the command prompt and type in ipconfig. Post the results.

Id say google is just cached and thats why its showing.

Culchie

Cheers, will ring him now and get him to do that

BobTheBeat

I would be looking at ZoneAlarm tbh. Its a finicky little thing if its installed willy nilly, i.e. if you haven't got a clue how it works.
There is an option to disable it temporarily. Tell him to right click on the ZoneAlarm icon in his system tray, and select 'shutdown Zonealarm'. Then he should try to connect to the ISP and see what happens.

roamer

bobmeaney wrote:

I would be looking at ZoneAlarm tbh. Its a finicky little thing if its installed willy nilly, i.e. if you haven't got a clue how it works.
There is an option to disable it temporarily. Tell him to right click on the ZoneAlarm icon in his system tray, and select 'shutdown Zonealarm'. Then he should try to connect to the ISP and see what happens.

Yeah, but he isn't sharing his connection with his neighbour, is he?

And if so, you hardly set-up his computer to route through the neighbours computer?

If his computer isn't set-up to route through the neighbours computer then zone-alarm is not the problem.

JPA

^^^^^^^^^

I'm sure he meant his neighbour installed ZoneAlarm on the Father in laws computer not on his own computer

peepsbates

roamer wrote:

Yeah, but he isn't sharing his connection with his neighbour, is he?

And if so, you hardly set-up his computer to route through the neighbours computer?

If his computer isn't set-up to route through the neighbours computer then zone-alarm is not the problem.

roamer

Ive seen people with this kind of set-up before actually, in apartments etc.

Your laughing at your own ignorance. Twats.:p

Culchie

roamer wrote:

It sounds like you possibly have a dns problem. Have you checked to see if the isp is having problems?
i assume its using a dynamic ip address. This will also mean that his gateway server (dns) is configured automatically.

Get him to go to the command prompt and type in ipconfig. Post the results.

Id say google is just cached and thats why its showing.

Here are the results

Windows IP Configuration

Ethernet Adapter Local Area Connection

Media State .......: Media Disconnected

PPP Adapter Oceanfree:

Connection Specific DNS Suffix :

IP Address : 194.165.173.223
Subnet Mask...............:255.255.255.255
Default Gateway .........:194.165.173.223

cgarvey

Valid ESat/BTIreland connection then.

So, try shutting down Zone Alarm, as above, and see can he Google. If not, then try

ping www.boards.ie

.. which "time=XXms" at the end of a few lines (do it on your own machine so you know what to expect). If he gets "unknown host", try

ping 82.195.136.250

. If he does get those "time=XXms" at the end, then it's a DNS problem. In which case do a

ipconfig /all

and in your "PPP Adapter Oceanfree" section, give us the "DNS Servers" line. See if you can ping them.

.cg

Culchie

from the dos prompt?