Windows Internet Woes

Comprox

Ok, I work in tech here, but I am truly stumped.

After a random about of time (Between .5 hours and 8+ hours) my web site internet will stop working. That means I can't browse any form of internet. All my other programs work fine, MSN, IRC, Streaming Audio, etc.

Using IE - I just get 'page cannot be displayed'
using FireFox - I get 'connection to www.site.com has been refused'

Updated my router firmware. Went straight to internet, ran a virus scan(from PC and online scan, clean), did windows updates, resetted modem + router many times, tried logging off (not restarting), tried letting it sit for a while, tried ipconfig /renew (works fine), tried windows right click on NIC and repair (says its fine), tried a few network tools from internet and still nothing. The only solution is a full reboot.

Checked with my brother, who is also using a fully updated version of Windows XP on the same router, and he is having no problems. So it seems my windows just implodes in on itself after a while. I haven't changed my setup in a while, but this just started happening about a week ago. I don't remember doing anything major at all in the past 2 weeks really.

As far as I can tell, I can try re-installing windows over itself or wipe windows and re-installing it. Re-installing over itself isn't much of a hassle, but I have little faith this will fix anything, but I shall try it in a few days when I get the time. A full format of windows isn't too bad as I have windows on a seperate partition. The pain comes into getting my 800 programs working with it again. All shortcuts gone, gotta re-install half of them cause not in registry, etc.

But, do you guys have any ideas? I'm on Windows XP SP1, all updated, had Norton running for years, and a router for years. Help, or must I do what always fixes Windows when it decides to randomly break? <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Infinitum

When in doubt. Blame your ISP

weggy

800 programs? Jesus christ. I simply do not see how people can have that many. You know how much hard drive space im using right now? About 4 gigs... total.

I format about once a month. Tends to keep away stupid problems like that before they happen. So thats my suggestion. Cant say ive ever heard of that before.

Confused

while i have not as yet had this particular prolem
this ms site helps most ot the time.
<a href='http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314067' target='_blank'>http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;314067</a>

also i suggest that you to www.sysinternals.com and get tdimon. and any to ftheir otehr tools taht take your fancy

these tools will allow you to get a much better idea where your problem lies. it catalogues all TCP andUDP trffic over your either net cards and displays all kinds of handy info.

another good choice is the trouble shooting page frm practiallynetworked.com availible
<a href='http://www.practicallynetworked.com/support/troubleshoot_index.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.practicallynetworked.com/suppor...shoot_index.htm</a>

those should get you to the point where you can diagnose the problem and in teh last case may be even fix it. although it genrally is fairly low level stuff, but some times thats all it takes.

ok its 445 and im going to sleepy pie

yaay!!

Talesin

When it starts dying, run a traceroute. Open a command-line window and just 'tracert www.site.com' and see where the trace dies... if it's at your own machine, you have problems. Probably should make sure your winsock stack hasn't been 'helped' by crappy spyware programs that monitor said packet interchange.
If it dies at your router, that's the fault. If it dies further than that, it may be your ISP or a router partway between you and your host.

If it's a Linksys router, apply a sledgehammer. Liberally. The things are pieces of crap, in my opinion... nothing but problems on anything but a Linksys-homogenous network. They must all die, in their cute blue and black plastic boxes... of EVIL!!!

Cronos

Search for a program called new dot net and delete it with extreme prejudice and alternatively run ad aware and any other spyware removal proggy.

Might not fix the problem but it's worth a shot...

Emsee

Sounds a little like a problem I was having. Though this was on a win2k machine.
The problem was with DNS resolution, anything that uses raw ip addresses worked fine, but websites didn't.
One way I found to get around this was to use a proxy server in internet explorer. The next time this happens use a proxy (ip number one obviously). If this fixes the problem then it is the same one that i was having. Which is a corrupt winsock file.

Try this <a href='http://tntmax.com/Download/Software/WinsockXPFix.exe' target='_blank'>Winsockxpfix.exe</a>
It will repair the files and the registry. Aswell as making back ups incase it doesn't work.
But it worked fine for me and havn't had any problems since.