Help needed before laptop gets thrown against the wall!!

[mickey]

Hi all, since the weekend the internet has been playing up and im at a loss to explain WTF is going on..

I can use some sites with no problems at all, but when trying to use others like facebook, net banking and msn/microsoft updates it tries to tell me there is no connection

Just wondering if its a net issue or software, have run full virus/spyware scans etc and system restore back till the 5th Dec.

Any help appreciated

Cheers

[Kahuna]

Don't know if this will help,use the link below and input the site you want into the box. It will tell you if the site is down or just you.

http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

[mickey]

cheers K, stopped after 4 sites and was all me

also forgot to mention that the laptop has 1 of those fingerprint ID things, also playing up.

Starting to think a complete start over is needed

[Psyber]

cheers K, stopped after 4 sites and was all me
also forgot to mention that the laptop has 1 of those fingerprint ID things, also playing up.
Starting to think a complete start over is needed

It could be just the local telephone lines if you are not using a wireless ISP.
Here it has been wet and I have had problems with some sites but not others, but when I try later I get on and have problems with others.
It is random - there is no consistency - and when it gets dry all goes back to normal.

There at three factors:
1. Water gets into the local street located cylindrical relay boxes and some signals drop out and never reach the local exchange.
2. My area is a Telstra only exchange, and I suspect Telstra have a way of ensuring BigPuddle priority if there is a lots of traffic.
3. Telstra are not maintaining copper lines - I had a good look at them when some local repairs were being done to my line when I first moved here.

There is a lot of oxidisation in the lines in this area. The life of copper lines was always limited by this, and replacement of them with fibre began in the 1980s - Telstra ran fibre-optic cable across my land near Hahndorf back then. While Telstra have to allow other providers access to the lines their strategy is to let them degrade, and to hope to then blackmail the government of the day into letting them have solo access to their replacement with fibre.

[Kahuna]

It is not your phone lines.
Seeing as you can browse to the site I linked to,you must have some connectivity.I would be looking at some commonality in the sites you can't reach. Maybe some security setting or other?

[Psyber]

Kahuna, the phone line issues I raised are intermittent ones, not constant or universal ones.
They are related to wet weather - sometimes you get through and sometimes you don't in those circumstances.
If there is a consistent pattern of not getting to certain sites but consistently getting to others, that rules out the issue I raised.

[mickey]

im not sure its the lines as such, but more something going wrong with the computer.

For example, i can get to to the login page of facebook, but when log in i get:

Safari can’t open the page “https://login.facebook.com/login.php?login_attempt=1” because it couldn’t establish a secure connection to the server “login.facebook.com”.

and when using explorer:

Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage

Most likely causes:
You are not connected to the Internet.
The website is encountering problems.
There might be a typing error in the address.

What you can try:
Diagnose Connection Problems

More information

same for when using ANZ site, get to the home page ok, but when click the log in button for the pop up window to appear says it cant connect

MSN said i didnt have a valid IP Address, that got me thinking a certain fone company has finally realised they never turned the broadband service off even though they have disconnected the fone line

[Psyber]

MSN said i didnt have a valid IP Address, that got me thinking a certain fone company has finally realised they never turned the broadband service off even though they have disconnected the fone line

Now that may explain a thing or two...
Your browser may be rendering cached versions of the opening page as it opens and then being unable to refresh them or go to the next page if that is so.
Check the valid IP address by trying to go to this site - http://www.ipchicken.com/ or http://www.whatismyip.com/

[mickey]

checked the mentioned links and not really sure what im looking for

as far as i could tell everything seemed ok with it, but not 2 sure what is normal

[Psyber]

If you got to the sites and they gave you the same IP number in response you are connected to the Internet and have a functioning ISP.
"ipchicken" gives more detail, and below identified my ISP, port in use, and browser etc.
Name Address: ppp118-208-212-157.lns10.mel6.internode.on.net
Remote Port: 11188
Browser: Opera/9.63 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en) Presto/2.1.1

[mickey]

122.105.82.179

Name Address: d122-105-82-179.adl4.sa.optusnet.com.au
Remote Port: 60537
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.19 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Safari/525.21

thats what i get from ipchicken.

not to sure about the next step, hopefully that makes sense to sum1 here

[smac]

I think it's time to throw it against the wall.

Please post photos for confirmation.

[Psyber]

So, it appears you do have an active connection to the Internet.
Now, if there are no line problems in the local area, the next question is whether there are problems with servers being overloaded at Optusnet.
Unfortunately they are unlikely to admit it if there are. In both these cases the lack of connectivity would be random not site specific.

Can you plug the laptop into a friend's network or modem - preferably someone using a different ISP - and see how it works then.
If you still have problems then you need to start looking at settings in your browser or your firewall to see if they are blocking specific sites.

[mickey]

Wondering if anyone can tell me what this means.... after doing a Network Diagnostics for Windows XP these are the results:

Last diagnostic run time: 12/27/08 22:09:04 Network Adapter Diagnostic
Network location detection

info Using home Internet connection
Network adapter identification

info Network connection: Name=Local Area Connection 2, Device=Bluetooth Personal Area Network from TOSHIBA, MediaType=LAN, SubMediaType=LAN
info Network connection: Name=Local Area Connection, Device=Intel(R) PRO/1000 PL Network Connection, MediaType=LAN, SubMediaType=LAN
info Network connection: Name=Wireless Network Connection, Device=Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection, MediaType=LAN, SubMediaType=WIRELESS
info Network connection: Name=1394 Connection, Device=1394 Net Adapter, MediaType=LAN, SubMediaType=1394
warn This machine has more than one Ethernet or more than one Wireless adapter
info Redirecting user to support call



HTTP, HTTPS, FTP Diagnostic
HTTP, HTTPS, FTP connectivity

warn FTP (Passive): Error 12031 connecting to ftp.microsoft.com: The connection with the server was reset
warn HTTPS: Error -2146893051 connecting to www.microsoft.com: The requested security package does not exist
warn HTTPS: Error -2146893051 connecting to www.passport.net: The requested security package does not exist
info HTTP: Successfully connected to www.microsoft.com.
warn FTP (Active): Error 12031 connecting to ftp.microsoft.com: The connection with the server was reset
error Could not make an HTTPS connection.
error Could not make an FTP connection.

thanks in advance, or smac might be getting his pics
after getting new comp at the xmas sales

[mickey]

Never fear, normal operating conditions has resumed

after a near total clear out of the comp, it came down to the anti virus playing up

Thanks to all who have helped with ideas on how to fix the problem.

Now any1 know a good antivirus?

[Psyber]

I'm using the free Comodo Antivirus at present after having some problems with the latest version of AVG.
Avast and Avira are also worth a look, and also free. Of the commercials I like Kapersky.

Comodo now comes as a free Comodo Internet Security package which they say requires you to delete Zone Alarm and replace it with their system to prevent conflicts caused by having two firewalls operating. I did that on one machine to trial it. However, I discovered that the installer will let you leave Zone Alarm there and just install the Comodo Antivirus component, which is what I have done on my other machine.

[JAS]

After a recommendation from an IT guy I used to know from work I've been using the free version of Avast for a few years now and it seems to have served me well so far...touch wood.

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
(don't know if there's an Aussie site for it but this is where a UK search takes you)

Regards
JAS