Fixing Corrupt Winsock Files?

[ANewhoff]

I recently lost the ability to connect to the internet via my desktop.  I called my internet provider and after a few diagnostics they concluded that I had corrupted Winsock files, and they would offer no further assistance.  

I guess I have two questions.  First, does this diagnosis sound reasonable?  Second, if so, how do I fix it?

I searched on the internet and found a program called winsock xp fix but that didn't work.

Any assistance would be GREATLY appreciated!!

Thanks,
Aaron

[GX1_Man]

What happened prior to this event? What type of ISP do you have? Is the computer networked in anyway? Could anyone have done something mischievous to it?

[ANewhoff]

Nothing significant prior to shutdown, just stopped working one day.  ISP is Time Warner Cable.  I have a wireless network to connect on my laptop, but even when I bypass the router and connect straight from my cable modem to the desktop I get the same problem.  

Thanks,
Aaron

[GX1_Man]

Try this:

http://www.wedoc.com/tcpip.htm

or this:

http://compnetworking.about.com/b/a/193505.htm

[RayG]

I had this same problem present itself on a client's Win98 (on dialup) machine that I finally resolved yesterday.

Initially, the problem started as a runtime error every time she attempted to use IE. I went over, resolved the runtime error, installed updated versions of Spybot and Ad-aware, ran them, and when I left internet appeared to be working. I also installed AVG, and removed NortonAV as her Norton was outdated and she didn't want to pay them for further service. She's on dialup.

I get an email the next day saying that she could use her email, but she couldn't access the net at all. (this turned out not to be entirely true, but based on her description, I mistakenly assumed it was a DNS server problem).

I returned for a second visit after conferring with her ISP technician, who assured me there should be nothing wrong with her DNS resolution, that it must be a faulty phone line. True, regardless of whether I pinged her ISP with the IP address or the name, the ping showed good results. (no lost packets, no timed out errors). Browsing the web produced intermittent results, regardless of what browser I used. If I rebooted the machine it would connect and browse, but after clicking a few links it would stop responding. I also installed and ran RegCleaner and Stinger. No viruses found, and only some minor stuff picked up by RegCleaner, which I removed.

While at the client's residence, I contacted her ISP tech again, who proceeded to tell me she could hear static on the phone line, and she was pretty adament that it was the client's phone line causing the problem. About this time the client informs me they have a dental appointment and that we have to leave in a couple minutes. No further extensive testing was possible, so I had to return yesterday to finalize everything.

On my last visit I ran some further ping tests by running

ping www.(her_isp).net -n 50

which sends 50 pings instead of the usual 4. I tried changing phone cords and outlets and found as much as 16% loss of signal in one result. I settled on the most stable connection, which wasn't the original connection, and continued. This is what else I did:.

- backed up her registry and .ini files by using .bat files
- installed a fresh version of her  vbrun .dll files
- installed and ran winsock fix to reset her TCP/IP protocol and dial-up networking
- removed some old program pointers that RegCleaner had left behind (Norton and Zonealarm even though neither was being used or loading on startup)
- installed/ran HijackThis, and deleted an unecessary browser helper object that it found
- tested Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers by visiting numerous websites
- ran a speed test (www.toast.net) which showed her connection was very slow (not surprising)

After all that, the internet connection worked very well, and I was able to consistently open new webpages with no undue freezing (except when loading pages with large images).

That's probably a whole lotta info you don't need to know, but it got the issue resolved, and part of that resolution included using the program winsockfix located at:
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=257

Client's machine is working fine now.

RayG

[2k_dummy]

http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm

[pcdoc4christ]

ANew:

Do you receive any error messages when you try to connect to the Internet?  If so, please write them down and type them in your next reply so we may look it up and find the solution.

Best regards,
Doc

[Fed]

On my last visit I ran some further ping tests by running
 
ping www.(her_isp).net -n 50
 
which sends 50 pings instead of the usual 4.

Aaron, you should try pinging your isp as Ray did above.

[ANewhoff]

Thanks very much for the input.  2k_Dummy, the lspfix file appears to have done the trick!!

Looks like I'm back in business.  Thanks again for the feedback.

Aaron