Another cable/dialup question

[WalterK]

I have a local dialup connection under Win98SE. I'm upgrading to cable, which is a surprise Xmas present for my kid.

Today, to test the system with cable, I installed and set up the cable modem, got it working with no problem, then took it out.

Now, the dialup ISP connects, but the browser won't go to any websites. I know this is probably something simple, but I haven't figured it out yet. Maybe it's somehow trying to use the cable connection, which isn't there any more?

Thanks for any help!

[gunrunnerjohn]

I suspect you installed the ISP's software that came with the service. This is a big NO-NO, and the first thing I'd do is uninstall it.

[WalterK]

The cable ISP didn't require any software. From start to finish, I installed a LinkSys LNE100TX NIC, with its driver and the cable modem itself, a Motorola SurfBoard SB5100, with its software.

The cable ISP required that I open Network in Control Panel, then select TCP/IP with the name of the NIC beside it,
click on properties, select the WINS configuration tab, select Use DHCP for WINS Resolution, hit OK, then OK again, and close Control Panel. Then, I had to run "winipcfg" and select the Linksys NIC from the dropdown list, to see connection info, then restart the computer and the modem. The cable connection worked great...but when I took it out of the system, although dialup appeared to connect, IE won't access any websites, I can't get a response from any server by pinging, and reinstalling the dialup ISP via DUN had no effect.

My Connections Tab in IE properties is set to always dial the default connection (which is the proper one), and IE did the same thing (didn't work) when I set it to connect when no network connection was present.

What may be a clue is that AOL WILL run after the dialup connection is made, and its browser works!

Thanks for any help.

[gunrunnerjohn]

I've found AOL is frequently a wild card in these kinds of situations. :) You mention software for the modem, I presume it's a USB modem? If so, I'd uninstall that software, since it's installation seems to have caused your problem in the first place.

[WalterK]

No....the new modem is a cable modem, and when it was installed, it was connected to the NIC. Its software appeared just to make sure it was working, and I don't see that it installed anything.

[Hi Ho]

I have a surfboard modem and it doen't have any software. It just plugs into the LAN on my computer.

[WalterK]

Whew, I got IE working again (at least it's working now).

Here's what I think happened: After I got the cable connection going, I had to leave for a few minutes. When I returned, it was still connected...and there were about a thousand popups that had appeared in my absence. In trying to get OUT of them, I may have inadvertently installed some kind of adware or spyware; in any event, I found and removed a great deal of it with both AdAware and Spybot.

What I also did with the cable connection active was downloaded and installed ZoneAlarm, since the computer was unprotected. After I removed cable access, I deactivated ZoneAlarm....but then found I couldn't access any websites, other than through AOL's browser. I also was unable to get a response by pinging various servers, including the dialup ISP's server, even though the connection itself was TO that server.

I decided to activate ZoneAlarm....and discovered that when it was running, it was blocking the dialup ISP's server! I uninstalled ZoneAlarm entirely, rebooted, and it seems the problem is solved.

Thanks to those who tried to help...maybe this post will assist someone else, although the circumstances of my problem are probably not too commonplace, :).

[gunrunnerjohn]

Sounds like a tarpit! :D