toms Posted May 16, 2006 Share Posted May 16, 2006 I've got a really weird problem with my home internet connection... and i'm drawing a blank on googling a solution so i thought i'd see if any techie/network people here might have an idea... I just moved house, and so I've just changed broadband providers. The house I moved to already had a USB broadband connection.. but that only worked for one PC so we dug out my old US Robotics modem/wireless router and set it up. Now both computers can wirelessly connect to the internet.. with a strong signal strength. On my PC 80% of web pages work fine.. but the other 20% just don't load at all. In firefox or IE. And they work fine on the other PC. The pages seem to be mostly ones that involve submitting data.. (or maybe redirecting) - I can browse ebay.. but My Ebay doesn't work. - I can browse LF, but when i submit a post nothing happens. - I can browse ticketmaster, but can't find out if tickets are available. - I tried downloading Beats of Rage from rapidshare.de and it always gives me invalid session errors when previously it worked fine. I thought it was https sites.. but a few of them work fine. The rest of the internet seems to work ok, as i've downloaded a few files and can view things like the Superman Trailer. When i try one of the pages that doesn't work it just tries to load it for about 3 minutes (blank white page) before timing out and giving a "connection reset by peer" or "server unavailable" error. I tried flushing my DNS cache. ANd i tried altering my MTU setting.. but nothing works. The broadband connection seems to work fine, as the other pc can access everything. The PC and browser should be fine. The wireless network seems to be working ok. It seems to be something to do with the combination of my pc and the broadband.. which is why i thought it might be a DNS or MTU problem. If i try pinging my.ebay.co.uk i get timeouts. Any suggestions would be much appreciated... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acdcfanbill Posted May 16, 2006 Share Posted May 16, 2006 you didnt add a bunch of stuff to your HOSTS file in an anti-spyware rage or anything did you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toms Posted May 16, 2006 Author Share Posted May 16, 2006 [edit]I think i've tracked my problem down to Sygate Personal Firewall which seems to be blocking some things it shouldn't be. I can't work out why though - and it never used to. Anyone recommend a good free firewall? I used to use Kerio 2 but it got discontinued. Now sygate is discontinued. Everyone always recommends zonealarm but i've found it to be horribly bloated and a big resource hog. Are there any good small free firewalls left? [/edit] [edit2] this is really weird. If i try and post nothing happens. If i set sygate to "allow all" then i can post fine. But if i then switch it back to "normal" i can still post. Same with ebay. It seems i have to use a site once in "allow all" mode before it will let me post there in "normal mode". Even once i make one site work in "normal" mode it still won't let the others work until i do the same for them. Definately need a new firewall... [/edit2] [edit3] I'm sure no-one cares.. but incase anyone ever happens to run into the same issue i found the answer with help from the guys on the sygate forums.. http://forums.sygate.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12518 I don't actually UNDERSTAND much of that, but it has worked so yay them! Seems like the new broadband caused a change in MTU that caused sygate to block something it shouldn't... or something... *shrugs* [/edit3] Nope. I can't even FIND my hosts file (isn't it hosts.sam?). I think spywareblaster locks/protects it... but i haven't made any changes to it... and all these sites used to work 10 days ago in my old house on the old broadband modem/router/isp. I'm wondering if its retained some old settings that are confusing it.. but i''m not sure what. Could the IP address of the PC on the network have any effect? Or maybe the DNS server settings of the router/isp? But then why would it work ok for the other PC on the network... *confused* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manoman81 Posted May 17, 2006 Share Posted May 17, 2006 Hey toms, don't feel bad. I've been getting the samething on my desktop. I have Norton IS and I'm getting continually fed up with it. My problem is that my destop won't load pages but my notebook works without a problem. I'm using a Lincsys router and hub. What I think it might be is that my brother has his PS2 online and it might be screwing something up. The only other thing I can think of is to shut off both the modem and router for 2 mins (at least for my stuff) so it can fully reboot. This may or may not be the solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toms Posted May 18, 2006 Author Share Posted May 18, 2006 Have you tried it with Norton switched off? That might be one way to check if the problem is similar to the one i had. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manoman81 Posted May 18, 2006 Share Posted May 18, 2006 I uninstalled Norton yesterday. There has been an increase in overall performance (obviously) and webpages have been coming up fine since. The thing I don't get is that I never changed the seetings on Norton. Can't understand why it decided to go hardcore on me and block pages. Had a hard time getting through to here to post even. No idea why. I did read on a page that a net admin for a company had to uninstall and reinstall Norton on 3 computers to get it to behave. I'm wondering if one of the updates did something it wasn't supposed to. My new problem is that I can get to my notebook through my desktop but not vice versa. In fact no other computer on the network can reach my desktop's shared folders. Always times out. I'm thinking that this might be a router issue more than anything though. But, yeah, getting rid of the firewall did wonders for web surfing. Edit: Well, it was working ok. Maybe it's just the forums. When I hit reply, the page times out. No idea why.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toms Posted May 18, 2006 Author Share Posted May 18, 2006 I hope you put another firewall back in though.... i'm having trouble with shared folders too.. trying to set it up so my xbox can access them. It used to work a long time ago, but i've changed a lot since then and can't remember what i did to make it work. its weird, i can get computers and i'm geeky enough to be able to disassemble and play with my PC.. but as soon as we are talking networking i'm as clueless as my parents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manoman81 Posted May 18, 2006 Share Posted May 18, 2006 its weird, i can get computers and i'm geeky enough to be able to disassemble and play with my PC.. but as soon as we are talking networking i'm as clueless as my parents. Same here. As for the firewall: one on the router and using the windows one with Avira AntiVir. Talked to my boss who is a networking guru and said that the windows one is good, not the best, but good. Here's to hoping I can cover it all... By the way, when was the last time you updated the firmware on the router? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manoman81 Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 I hate to dig keep digging this up but I figured out my problem. My onboard NIC died. Got a new one and the web pages are loading just fine. Might be worth looking into Toms. As for the networking problems, I'd just like to say that I hate XP home on my laptop because there are seetings I need to get to and double chaeck that don't exist on Home... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toms Posted May 24, 2006 Author Share Posted May 24, 2006 Cheers. I might look into it, but to be honest i've kind of got it to an ok level of working and i'm not sure its worth the extrahassle to get it working fully. Web pages all seem to load now.. * I might look into getting shared folders working sometime.. but right now i can't be bothered. *For some reason I can't download anything from Rapidshare (one of those free upload sites) because it always tells me my session is invalid. Every other site i've tried works fine so sessions must be working ok. Weird.. but oh well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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