Ethernet port not picking up internet
 

I recently moved and my laptop is no longer pickup up a working cable modem signal. I get a connection, but cannot get the internet to work. Of all my work with computers, I don't have much experience with this. Does anyone have a tip on what I can do or check to get my internet working?

Some details...its a PC, cable modem, ethernet (when they installed, they used USB since ethernet wouldnt work now USB is not working either).

are you using bellsouth? (not sure since you say you're using a cable modem) I see you're in atlanta...I have that problem sometimes...when I do I open a browser window and just type in launchmodem in the addy bar and click the connect button on the page that comes up and it works everytime.

I am using Comcast. I've had before BellSouth too. Pick your poison I guess. I will give that a shot. Thanks.

I've never used comcast so I dont know if they have something comparable or not but you might call and ask them

what happens if you go to a command prompt and type: ping localhost

can you ping external IP addys, like 216.109.118.67

If your cable installer added a splitter so that your cable modem has a separate line, then you may want to verify that that coax was not disconnected by some over-zealous comcast technician. They did that to my two times basing their action on the fact that I had a two TV cable boxes and three coaxes coming into the house.

Just because a comcast guy installed it means that any other comcast technican understands what was done. Many of the installers that handle _only_ TV have very limited expertise and use the info on the number of TV boxes to decide whether or not you are pirating the signal.

when i ping localhost i get...
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Ping Statistics:
Packets: Sent = 4, Recieved = 4, Lost = 0

when i ping 216.109.118.67 i get...

Request timed out.
Ping Statistics:
Packets: Sent = 4, Recieved = 4, Lost = 0

You need to make sure your DNS servers are listed by the sounds of things. If you can ping an external IP address, you have a connection.

If you use WindowsXP
Right click on properties of the network card and check the Status Option.
Goto the "Support" Tab and you should see a button labelled details. Hit this and you should be able to see if your modem forwarded the configuration to the network properties.

If the DNS servers are empty, just right click on the Network adaptor and hit Repair. Also, make sure that in the networks property page, on the TCP-IP section, make sure that Both "Obtain and IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS Server automatically" are both selected.

Reboot Cable modem, and let it restart. Once the ONLINE light is stable, reboot your PC.

EDIT** Did you actually get 4 packets back on the external ping?

Is your Cable modem online light stable, or does it look like its rebooting constantly?

I did get four packets back on the external.

It is stable.

I tried the other steps, switched it to 'Detect' and then hit repair. It says there was an error: Renewing the IP address.

My DNS Server under Network Connection Details is empty now.

I haven't restarted it yet though. If I am getting an error on the IP address I dont know if restarting will help.

not to sound like a broken record....when I have had the problem with bellsouth I get the renewing IP addy error too...thats when I do the launchmodem. I would think comcast has the same sort of thing although the command might be totally different.

I gave the launchmodem command a shot and it didn't do much. I will probably try a few different things and restart. Anything short of calling comcast. They dont seem to be too bright about stuff.

well launchmodem (at least on my pc) is a bellsouth command

looks like their website is set up about the same and they have help forums here

http://online.comcast.net/help/?CM.src=left

you might find an answer on the help message board

If you type http://216.239.57.99/ you should see googles website.

Ok, what you need to do, is Release and renew your IP address.

Goto Start, hit run and type in ipconfig /release and hit enter
then do it again, but type ipconfig /renew

There is also a chance that comcast doesnt have the mac address of the network card registered in there database, which may be causing you head aches.

Restart Modem
Restart PC
Release and Reniew IP address
If all above fails , call comcast @ 888-262-6300

Just another thing, what modem are you using?

I am using a Motorola SURFboard Cable Modem.

You can access the modems status here

type http://192.168.100.1/startup.html

Do they all say DONE but the last one, which should say Operational?

Thanks for all your help. I will follow these steps. And if that doesnt work, I'll just give in a call Comcast. Their customer service is pretty dim.

Thanks again.

Thanks for you help. I'll give this a shot. Have fun in Norcross and in a couple of months maybe the Regular Guys will be back on air somewhere.

are you using a home router like linksys? I use comcast and the tech set up the modem. Once I put in the home router all of my internet stopped. I eventually resolved it by cloning the MAC address from my laptop that the tech used to setup the internet account.

The strange thing is my work laptop works fine. My home laptop doesnt. What you describe sounds like a Comcast problem? Or a computer setup issue?

Computer setup is probably to blame. If you enter that IP address in the web browser did google come up? http://216.239.57.99/

This maybe a bit of a stab in the dark but did you switch off and on the cable modem after trying to switch from usb to ethernet, or from one pc to another?

This is gonna be completely different probably, but my ISP in OZ links the ip address they give you to the single devices mac address when first plugged in. If you want to use a second device plugged into the cable modem, you have to "reset" the cable modem (by switching off then on). Similarly, if going from a pc directly connected to sticking a router in - the cable modem needs to be rebooted.

If the renew ip address fails, you may end up with a "private" address (in the range 169.254.x.x) - this may be caused by an incorrect mac address as above.

Ok, this probably has nothing to do with your problem, but it might and it's very easy to check. I had this problem when I hooked my girlfriends computer up to a cable modem.

Go to Network Connections, right click on the local area connection, go to properties, and make sure that it has the Network Moniter Driver installed. If it doesn't then I have no idea whats going on, if it's not installed then click on install, protocol and install the Network Moniter Driver. That solved it for my girlfriend comp, so maybe it's going on with yours. Hope this helps.

NO?
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DNS is for name resolution, would only apply if he tried to resolve the IP by cononical name. Example would be to:
ping www.fark.com and getting a request time out or not reachable.

If you ping the IP directly, and are not getting a response, that would be a gateway issues, not DNS.

When you ping google, akadns should reply with something like:
spam:~# ping www.google.com
PING www.google.akadns.net (216.239.39.104) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 216.239.39.104: icmp_seq=1 ttl=240 time=50.2 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.39.104: icmp_seq=2 ttl=240 time=77.6 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.39.104: icmp_seq=3 ttl=240 time=50.9 ms
64 bytes from 216.239.39.104: icmp_seq=4 ttl=240 time=50.4 ms

--- www.google.akadns.net ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3031ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 50.277/57.342/77.652/11.731 ms

It could also be that the modem will only hand out a certain number of IP addresses to the first X MAC addresses that request it. Could be this number has been reached. I think this can be reset in the modems control panel from a computer that has access to the web.