Please Help me page won't load

[dagreat21]

Ok so here is the situation. My mom has a dell laptop just over 2 years old. Yesterday morning she was able to view email, play games, do everything possible using wireless internet and internet explorer.

In the afternoon, she was no longer able to do any of this. I have cleared cache, cookies, files, etc. We did system restore, tried almost everything.

What happens is we can get to yahoo's main page, she can login, she goes to click on email and it says page cannot be displayed. Can't go to any websites but can read news stories on yahoo, sports stories and all are up to the minute.

Any ideas and help would be greatly appreciated.

[dagreat21]

Also, its windows xp that she is using.

[dl65]

dagreat21 .....  If I read and understand your issue, everything was fine in the morning, however in the afternoon when the laptop was restarted nothing worked except Yahoo's home page via internet explorer.

Did you try opening internet options , advanced tab and restore default settings ?

Does the laptop have current updated anti virus and antispyware protection?

Was the wireless connection used in the morning the same as the one being used in the afternoon?

Currently, the only site you can get to is Yahoo?

Which browser version are you using ?


dl65 

[dagreat21]

We are running IE 6, when we upgrade to IE7 we cannot access anything.

It is the exact same wireless internet that we used earlier in the day.

Everything is up to date.

We did restore default setting and there was no change.

We can get to google and what not. What is extremely wierd is that websites that she has never visited work. Like i checked my gmail account on there and it worked.

[dl65]

dagreat21 .......  Now I'm confused.  You said........

Can't go to any websites

  .......... thats tells me that you cant get to any other site............. then you now say .....

We can get to google and what not.

..... that tells me you can get to other sites.
Do you have SP2 installed ?

What is extremely wierd is that websites that she has never visited work.

   Why is this wierd?

When did you download and install IE7?
Did it D/L and install ok ?


dl65 

[dagreat21]

It wasn't until I just sat down and checked if google worked along with gmail. It lets me search and gives results but won't let me access websites it brings up.

Yes SP 2 is installed.

All of her websites from favorites don't work but ones like Gmail that she has never heard of don't work. Also AOL and Comcast.net don't work.

AIM does work.

She is sending more packets than she is receiving, even when not doing anything.

Our router cannot find a DNS address at all.


I am pretty new at all this so i do apologize for any misunderstandings.

[Deerpark]

This is pretty much your problem right there. DNS is what make human readable websites like www.computerhope.com into IP's which is what computers understand.
So try pulling out the the power plug on your router and modem and then wait a bit (like 10-15 secs). Then reinsert the power plugs and wait for the modem/router to start up. Then see if the connection is working as normal.

[dagreat21]

If that is the problem, how come other computers on the network can access these very sites that  that computer cannot?

[dagreat21]

Could this be an issue with the registries? When i searched microsoft for a solution, it said i may need to clean the registry....which is a problem because the computer won't access a site where I can get a registry cleaner.

[Deerpark]

Windows has a local dns cache where it saves ips for sites that has been accessed recently, that way it doesn't need to make a dns request every time you access a site. Either that or the other computers are configured not to use the router for dns lookups. Normally computers on routers use the router to make dns lookups but you can configure them to use a different dns server.
But please try to cycle the power on the router and modem, it doesn't damage them and might fix the problem.

[dagreat21]

Tried it and nothing changed. What I am seeing is that i go to the netgear router login page and see that i have selected get DNS automatically. Then there are 0 s in the box. I assume there is no dns simply because the same is selected in the ip address except there are numbers in the boxes.

I could be entirely wrong and probably am.

[Deerpark]

Hmm
You are certain that the other computers on the network are in fact able to access the internet without problems? That is, they're able to visit sites that you don't usually visit? When I have to test out suspected DNS problems I usually try www.qwerty.com. Easy to remember and not likely to have been visited.

If the other computers on the network functions normally could you try the following on the computer that's having problems.
select Start
select Run
Type cmd and press enter
Type ipconfig /all and press enter.
You get a window similiar to this one.

Please write down all of the information in the box and post it here, or take a screenshot of your window.