Topic: pc stopped opening web pages.

[booch]

received an HP Pavilion 8650c from father in law as second pc for networking.
worked fine when i received it, and for a couple months after wards.
hooked it up with other pc via linksys router to internet, and networked them together.
everything worked fine for month or so.
they are both old slow machines, one an NEC PII 350, the Pavilion a 533 Celeron, but still functional.

8650c suddenly stopped being able to open web pages fully, or at all.
seems like some title lines would open, but that is it.
then stops and says could not open web page.
does not matter what web page, just does not open any.
tried all sorts of things like running pc directly to cable modem, switching the cable run to modem, switching 'ports' on router, checked router configurations, checking if IE settings were off or something.
Everything looked fine.
as a last resort, tried a restore of OS from recovery cd provided with original pc package.
no good.
completely reformatted hard drive from recovery cd provided with original pc package.
still no go.
reformatted with later version of 98se, still no go.
swapped ethernet adapter, still no go.
tried to download a program to test mobo, (sisoft), burned to cd on other pc, to run in hp Pavilion.
started to load but errored out on lack of MDAC app??
apparently it should be part of IE updates that I am unable to get to since i can't open web pages on that pc.
i am thinking mobo might be shot, but before i look into replacing, trying to get some idea if i am missing something.
another thing, the two pc's that i have networked together can both see each other, and their shared drives.
I can open files from the bad pc, to the good pc, but seems i can't open files from the good pc, to the bad pc.
tried a test with simple image file on both machines.
can see the folders and file names, but when on bad pc, viewing file from good pc you click on the image file, and bad pc locks up.

HELP!!!!

[Simon]

Hi Booch, welcome back!  You certainly seem to have gone back to square one with your Windows installations.  I expect one of our techies will have a better suggestion, but in the meantime, have you checked the router firewall settings?  It sounds like a networking issue of some sort.  :|

[booch]

well, did not change the configuration of the router since initial set up of router.
being as the Pavilion worked just fine for a while, i don't think it is the routers settings.
i did go through the configuration of the router, but everything looked decent.

i initially thought it was a virus of some sort, but could not access internet to download a virus, or spyware scan.
ended up copying programs from other pc to scan Pavilion in safe mode, but still could not correct problem.
that is when i starting re-formatting.

when attempting to access the internet, the message line says it is opening up a web page, then stops short of loading any real content.
it may open up a title line, like for google or yahoo, but then thats it.
i am suprised it loads anything if it is the mobo.

[Sandra]

It has to be the firewall on the HP Pavilion 8650c thats blocking net access somehow.

I cant see it being the router settings but you could check to make sure that port 80 is open for all pcs on your LAN, just in case.

[booch]

Well, going against safe computing practices, I had no software firewall on that machine.
I had planned to put one on there, just never got to it.
Plus, since it was behind the router, i figured that has a firewall, so another one was not needed.
Another plus, since I already had Zonealarm on the still functioning pc(NEC), I noticed that in order to 'see' the NEC machine in the network(of two pc's), I had to disable the zonealarm on the NEC.
So, no software firewall on the HP Pavilion.
And, now that I reformatted the Hard drive and loaded a different version of 98SE, there is no original software on the Pavilion, so no firewall or virus scan if there was any loaded in the first place.
Problem has not changed.
Is there a program that anyone knows of that can scan a mobo for problems?
I was referred to Sisoft by a friend, but do not know if anyone ever has success with it.

[Simon]

Do you happen to know the manufacturer of the motherboard?  There might be something on their website, perhaps?  

Otherwise, you could try http://www.freshdevices.com/freshdiag.html but not sure how far it will go for free.  :|

[Sandra]

Si Soft Sandra is quite good at a lot of things but not sure if the burn in test would show up a mobo fault or not.
I use PC-Check for diagnostics but I cant see why a networking problem would be caused by a mobo fault  :?

[chorleydave]

Have a look at the link below:

http://help.expedient.net/broadband/mtu.shtml#win9p

[booch]

well, finally got the problem corrected.
i had disassembled the machine for the holidays, as it was occupying my bar top, and we had much company over for the holidays.
so, holidays are over, re-assembled and got back at it.
turns out the network adapter has some sort of problem.
re-assembled and reformatted again, tried accessing internet, same problem.
moved ethernet adapter to different PCI slot, tried accessing internet, still nothing.
swapped out ethernet adapter a friend gave me, a Linksys lne100tx, found and loaded the drivers for it, fired it up and it works like a charm.

thanks for all the feedback everyone.
turns out to be a simple thing, after all that reformatting.