Vista can ping internet but will not connect to web sites

I have been doing some research and have found quite a few instances of
people not being able to connect to the internet, but I have not found one
quite like mine, yet. I installed Vista on a new partition (dual booting
with XP) and everything was fine for about 24 hours.

Then, I started getting svchost.exe running two instances, with each
instance taking close to 50% CPU utilization. I cannot connect to the
internet, or seemingly to any web site, even on my intranet. I can ping
anything if I lower the firewall on my router (which blocks all pinging from
any PC on my network). I can ping the local network, too. All automatic
updates fail.

I have tried both Wifi and ethernet connections, with no change.

Sometimes when I start the PC, the network connection will say "Local Access
only" for a time (up to a couple minutes), but then it always switches to
"Local and Internet"

I have tried new drivers for my NIC's, using a static IP instead of DHCP
supplied, and I removing programs I installed like Office 2003. Some of the
newer drivers I have tried have alleviated the CPU utilization problem, but
have not restored web site connectivity.

Since it was able to connect to the web sites for awhile, I thought it might
have been an update that did something, but there are only a few updates
installed.

I installed Spyware Doctor, but I have disabled it. It seems to make no
difference if it runs or not. Disabling the firewall on the router or the
Windows firewall makes no difference. Rebooting the wireless AP and the DSL
modem/router makes no difference.

This laptop is a bit old (3 years), but it has a P4 3 ghz, with 2 GB RAM,
plenty of hard drive, and nVidia G-Force Go 5200 graphics. It runs Vista
fine with Aero, etc. A bit slow every once in awhile, but no big problems
until now.

What really bugs me about this whole thing is that it was working. I have
read several other accounts that are just like mine in that respect: "was
working for some time, then, BAM, all of a sudden, this happened." I could
see if my hardware was just too old, but why did it work the first day?

Any ideas? I am about to scrap the whole project, as I have been
troubleshooting it all weekend, now.

Thanks...

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
"Jason" <Jason@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:C85EC5ED-067D-4588-85B5-DA5439ED3111@microsoft.com...
OK, I finally uninstalled Spyware Doctor instead of only disabling it, and,
as if by magic, the internet is back in business. This is the new version of
Spyware Dr (v5) that is supposed to work with Vista.

Not sure why - I had disabled every service it was using (I thought)...and
the svchost instances did not show any Spyware Dr-related services running
under them. The whole thing is very strange. I guess I am off to talk to
the Spyware Dr people, now!

Maybe my experience with help someone else.

You are welcome. A bit more info - Spyware Doctor is an award-winning, very
effective anti-spyware (in my experience) application. However, version 5
was just released, and it is creating all kinds of problems, not only on
Vista, but also for many people still on XP. The inability to connect to web
sites properly and other TCP/IP problems are part of this. I hope they get
these issues fixed, since I really do like the application.

You can read up on some of these problems at:

http://www.pctools.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=54

I hope some people find this info helpful. If I had thought to go to
PCTools' web site first, it would have saved me about 2 days of pulling my
hair out.

Jason


"Robert L [MVP - Networking]" wrote:

> Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
>
> Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
> Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
> How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
> "Jason" <Jason@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:C85EC5ED-067D-4588-85B5-DA5439ED3111@microsoft.com...
> OK, I finally uninstalled Spyware Doctor instead of only disabling it, and,
> as if by magic, the internet is back in business. This is the new version of
> Spyware Dr (v5) that is supposed to work with Vista.
>
> Not sure why - I had disabled every service it was using (I thought)...and
> the svchost instances did not show any Spyware Dr-related services running
> under them. The whole thing is very strange. I guess I am off to talk to
> the Spyware Dr people, now!
>
> Maybe my experience with help someone else