Corrupt winsock / tcp/ip stack

I am writing because this is the second time I have encountered this problem in the past week on the same machine. The first time I did a quick fix, reinstall windows xp. Then on Saturday, the problem reared it's head again. The problem I am encountering is this, Windows is automatically assigning the network adaptor an IP address of 169.254.112.251, of the address type Automatic Private Network. I read up on APIPA (Automatic Private IP address) and the problem seems to lie in a corrupted Winsock and tcp/ip stack. I have run a winsock fix, that I found here: http://www.spychecker.com/program/winsockxpfix.html. I have encountered a similar problem before with many computers that have removed the new.net program, and the winsock fix that I linked to always fixes it. This problem seems to be different, as the network adaptor will not get a different IP, no matter what, even after a reboot after running the Winsock fix. The adaptor its self is not bad, as I tried to hook the cable modem to the USB hub, and it was assigned the exact same IP. If anyone has heard of a problem like this, please help! I do not want to be rebuilding XP every three days for my friend!

 

you can contact me @ xxxxx@xxxx.net with any answers. thank you again.

 

ah, I see... Makes sense. anyway, this is the same guy who posted the question. if anyone has any solutions, let me know. OH, and there is no spyware that I can see with spybod and adaware, hijack this found nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Try this lspfix found at:

http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm

Hope this helps...

Cheers

 

nope... already tried it as well. forgot to mention that. did nothing.

 

shouldn't be the ISP, this is at a different house... We both have Charter Pipeline, 3 meg service... Internet works just fine @ my house, I'm going to take my box over there later tonight to see wtf is up... maybe it's their connection. I suppose just about anything is possible.

 

ha... well... after doing everything imaginable, I got so damn fusturated I turned off the power strip that everything was plugged into... just because I didn't want to look at the %^#*&$! screen again! After an hour or so, while I collected my thoughts, i turned it back on, and lo and behold... it worked. Modem must have had some problems, and lost the DHCP server. Weird.

 

glad to hear that everything is working fine. but the problem could reappear just like the way it disappeared. contact your ISP about the DHCP server configuration in your system. if the problem reappears again try to ping to this address 127.0.0.1 and if it goes fine then there is nothing wrong with your TCP/IP stack.

 

Right... It's not a problem to run the winsock fix when the problem comes up, it takes two seconds, but that doesn't seem to be the problem, after repeatadly fixing it using the automatic script, and the manual way. The problem seems to be in the cable modem losing the DHCP server for some reason, requiring a hard reset. The modem is a Motorola Surfboard 4200 (I think, it's not mine, so I don't remember the exact model #).

 

Nope, the modem is connected directly to the computer.

 

Ok... did a little more research. The firmware on the Motorola Surfboard 4200 is buggy. When encountering certain types of data it will completely lock, and you will be unable to access the internet. A complete hard reboot of the modem is necessary to regain network functionality.

 

it's something that the cable company has to do, since it's their hardware and all... Aside from the fact that motorola doesn't make the firmware available to consumers, but I did find it along with instructions... I'm not gutsy enough to try flashing it myself, as it involves quite a few steps...

 

Yea... Not too bad after working on it for hours thinking it was the winsock and tcp/ip stack. ARGH! I am really suprised to find that a big brand like Motorola would have such a shady product... I have some generic branded cable modem provided by Charter and have had no problems with it at all.