Suddenly, laptop cannot access ALL websites

J

JOhnH

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Right Seater
My wife's older HP laptop (Windwos 10, 64bit) has begun failing to bring up most web sites. She can still bring up some websites, like aviationweather.gov, or CNN.com but most websites fail to connect. The built in windows diagnostic says that Broadband is experiencing connectivity issues and advises resetting the modem.

When I connect to Yahoo mail it takes me to the home page, but when I try to log in it fails to bring up the login page.

This happens both over wifi and when I have it hardwired (Cat 5 ethernet) to the router.

But my hard wired PC works fine, and all of my I-thingeys work fine on wifi. (I turned off cellular and connected to the wifi). The cable company has already replaced the router and the new one is doing the same thing.

What can make a laptop only be able to connect to a few websites but not most others?

NOTE: This has been happened before but I was able to disconnect from the WIFI SSID and reconnect and it usually started working. This time, nothing I do seems to help, including frequent reboots and wifi reconnects. Also, two days ago after reconnecting I was able to apply the latest windows OS update, so that is up to date.
 
a multitude of possible reasons.

One piece of info: compare the DNS ips of your devices that work to the DNS ips on your wife's older HP laptop. Are they the same?

Can you see the transfer rates if you do a local machine to machine file copy?
 
specifically, clear the DNS cache on the laptop (I don't know how to do that on windoze... it's pretty simple on the mac)
 
all the above, and believe it or not, check that the date and time are right. Most websites these days are https, and that depends on having a certificate trust system that works, and that depends on the time and date working, and your browser having access to certificate authorities.

Also, if you're using any goofy vpn software, disable it.
 
Those porn sites must’ve given you a virus!
 
Albany Tom said:
Also, if you're using any goofy vpn software, disable it.
Click to expand...

thread drift alert...

"goofy vpn software"? what vpn software do you consider to be goofy?
 
I'll be disappointed if Disney never releases Goofy's VPN...
 
@RDUPilot makes the big bucks and can prob sort this out.

@JOhnH here's what I would try (it's worked for me in the past, until it stops working...) but there could be a lot of other reasons this is happening, this is just one thing to try:

-close everything u got open on the computer
-open a browser with only 1 tab open
-open a cmd prompt as admin
-go back to your browser and type, BUT DO NOT HIT ENTER, mail.yahoo.com and DO NOT hit enter
-go back to the cmd prompt and type ipconfig /flushdns and hit enter
-go back to your browser and hit enter to take you to mail.yahoo.com

any better? prob not, what the heck do I know but that's about as much troubleshooting time as I got right now..........
 
eman1200 said:
@RDUPilot makes the big bucks and can prob sort this out.

@JOhnH here's what I would try (it's worked for me in the past, until it stops working...) but there could be a lot of other reasons this is happening, this is just one thing to try:

-close everything u got open on the computer
-open a browser with only 1 tab open
-open a cmd prompt as admin
-go back to your browser and type, BUT DO NOT HIT ENTER, mail.yahoo.com and DO NOT hit enter
-go back to the cmd prompt and type ipconfig /flushdns and hit enter
-go back to your browser and hit enter to take you to mail.yahoo.com

any better? prob not, what the heck do I know but that's about as much troubleshooting time as I got right now..........
Click to expand...
 
eman1200 said:
@RDUPilot makes the big bucks and can prob sort this out.

@JOhnH here's what I would try (it's worked for me in the past, until it stops working...) but there could be a lot of other reasons this is happening, this is just one thing to try:

-close everything u got open on the computer
-open a browser with only 1 tab open
-open a cmd prompt as admin
-go back to your browser and type, BUT DO NOT HIT ENTER, mail.yahoo.com and DO NOT hit enter
-go back to the cmd prompt and type ipconfig /flushdns and hit enter
-go back to your browser and hit enter to take you to mail.yahoo.com

any better? prob not, what the heck do I know but that's about as much troubleshooting time as I got right now..........
Click to expand...

I tell people, I am IT, but not that IT..
Dial extension 7000... aka Help Desk
:cool::D
 
Ok, I think I got it fixed!
(If you don't want to read my rambling, skip to "SOLUTION".

I will now cancel the order for the $3,000 MacBook.

Symptoms would come and go. Mostly come. It started with the laptop, but disconnecting from wifi and reconnecting usually fixed. Until it didn't.

Swapped the router (the ONLY good thing about renting equipment from the cable company is that I didn't have to pay for a new router).
But that made it worse. Now the problem started showing up on the Ipad mini-5.

After dozens of reboots and resets, and calls to support, the Ipad Pro stopped connecting to wifil

After at least a dozen calls to Spectrum Tech Support They suggested a new Modem. (Again, a free swap).

Now, NOTHING worked unless I plugged My desktop directly into the modem without going through the router. That worked, but now I had no wifi.

When looking at my wifi SSIDs, I noticed there was the name of a wifi extender I hooked up a long time ago to get connectivity in the bedroom, but I stopped using it when I got a new router last year.

SOLUTION:

In order to simplify the network,I removed the WIFI extender from the wall and everything started working again.

I need a drink.
 
Albany Tom said:
Just me - any that isn't required for remote work access.
Click to expand...

huh - I think I'll keep the VPN software I'm using at home rather than expose certain devices/protocols/ports
 
JOhnH said:
Ok, I think I got it fixed!
....
SOLUTION:

In order to simplify the network,I removed the WIFI extender from the wall and everything started working again.

I need a drink.
Click to expand...

Nice!! Congrats! I didn't think of "weird network device or wifi thing in play".

Bob Noel said:
huh - I think I'll keep the VPN software I'm using at home rather than expose certain devices/protocols/ports
Click to expand...

I use a firewall/router between the cable modem and wifi box for that.
 
Albany Tom said:
I use a firewall/router between the cable modem and wifi box for that.
Click to expand...

I was referring to unsecure protocols like SMB that you might use internally but should never ever expose to the interweb.
 
Bob Noel said:
I was referring to unsecure protocols like SMB that you might use internally but should never ever expose to the interweb.
Click to expand...

100% agree on blocking SMB, in and out, and it's a shame that MS keeps using that. My soho firewall is setup to just allow the basic stuff out - 80/443, dns, etc., nothing in except the reverse traffic for web connections. I do that rather than VPN, because it gives me that control rather than trusting that vendor, because I specifically don't trust vpn vendors, because it's cheaper, and because I don't have any concern on my isp tracking any of my traffic - google does that anyway.
 
Albany Tom said:
100% agree on blocking SMB, in and out, and it's a shame that MS keeps using that. My soho firewall is setup to just allow the basic stuff out - 80/443, dns, etc., nothing in except the reverse traffic for web connections. I do that rather than VPN, because it gives me that control rather than trusting that vendor, because I specifically don't trust vpn vendors, because it's cheaper, and because I don't have any concern on my isp tracking any of my traffic - google does that anyway.
Click to expand...

ah. I never considered the use of VPN for basic stuff like 80/443, etc. the usual stuff used at home to access the interweb.

To me, VPN at home is for exposing a particular home device (or devices) for a particular set of services. And by "exposing" I mean just very limited number of people who have the username/password (with the optional two-factor authentication). Even then, VPN can be locked down to limit what the user can do. Sure, it would be more secure to never expose the device/service, but a major part of cybersecurity is risk management.
 
Bob Noel said:
ah. I never considered the use of VPN for basic stuff like 80/443, etc. the usual stuff used at home to access the interweb.

To me, VPN at home is for exposing a particular home device (or devices) for a particular set of services. And by "exposing" I mean just very limited number of people who have the username/password (with the optional two-factor authentication). Even then, VPN can be locked down to limit what the user can do. Sure, it would be more secure to never expose the device/service, but a major part of cybersecurity is risk management.
Click to expand...

I describe VPN as a technology that took off in the 90's to transport legacy, insecure protocols over the Internet. It's become a way to facilitate telecommute where an organization doesn't have better solutions. Completely agree on risk management...we have to work with the tools we have, and provide the services that the business needs. At work, VPN drives me nuts because it extends our network boundary outside our physical areas of control. In a previous job, around 15 years ago, we were able to completely eliminate it by offering up apps via web portal, and supporting endpoints right over the Internet. My current work isn't quite that modern, so we're heavily dependent on VPN still. At home, I don't use it because I don't have any need to access any local resources from outside the home.
 
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