Connection problems - desperate

Tenorman · #1 03-03-2007, 12:31 PM

Hi there

I've got a problem with my system that has me completely stumped. Yesterday I got a new Bluetooth dongle to use to back up info from my mobile phone. I was trying the "send file" command from the blue tooth menu, got the egg timer briefly and then nothing happened. I have since lost all network connectivity and Windows (XP Home Edition) is incredibly slow starting up (often more than 5 minutes). I normally use a Thompson SpeedTouch wireless router but attached through to my Broadcomm network card with an ethernet cable. When XP finally starts up it recognises the network card but sits endlessly "Aquiring IP address" and never gets it. The router is still working ok as I am typing this on a laptop connected to the same router wirelessly. I have just tried reusing my old ADSL - USB modem instead. After a few attempts where it would not automatically install drivers (took three attempts on the device driver to update drivers) the modem was finally working and recognising the broadband phone line. However, when trying to set up a new connection to use the ADSL modem (it still works like a dial up connection) the option to use a dial up is greyed out and the only option available is to use an "always on" connection - ie ethernet. I have, so far, used McAfee utilities to do an entire clean - which cleans cache, orphaned registry files, cookies, browser history, etc. I have also run two complete virus scans with McAfee which only updated a couple of days ago so should recognise any viruses or worms. I've now also re-installed Windows twice (not a complete clean install, just trying to repair). Windows XP is still equally slow starting if I try to start it in Safe Mode, with or without networking. The machine is a Dell Dimension 2400, so not exactly state of the art but still less than 2 years old. I've also run the hardware check utility from the Advanced Boot menu and it says everything is OK. All the drivers on the device manager read ok too. Has anyone come across anything at all like this - it's got me completely stumped and all I can think of now is completely erasing the hard drive and starting from scratch, and I hesitate to do that because it's a major thing and I'd reallly like to know what has gone wrong with my system.

Cheers

Colin

bookworm · #2 03-06-2007, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tenorman

Hi there

I've got a problem with my system that has me completely stumped. Yesterday I got a new Bluetooth dongle to use to back up info from my mobile phone. I was trying the "send file" command from the blue tooth menu, got the egg timer briefly and then nothing happened. I have since lost all network connectivity and Windows (XP Home Edition) is incredibly slow starting up (often more than 5 minutes). I normally use a Thompson SpeedTouch wireless router but attached through to my Broadcomm network card with an ethernet cable. When XP finally starts up it recognises the network card but sits endlessly "Aquiring IP address" and never gets it. The router is still working ok as I am typing this on a laptop connected to the same router wirelessly. I have just tried reusing my old ADSL - USB modem instead. After a few attempts where it would not automatically install drivers (took three attempts on the device driver to update drivers) the modem was finally working and recognising the broadband phone line. However, when trying to set up a new connection to use the ADSL modem (it still works like a dial up connection) the option to use a dial up is greyed out and the only option available is to use an "always on" connection - ie ethernet. I have, so far, used McAfee utilities to do an entire clean - which cleans cache, orphaned registry files, cookies, browser history, etc. I have also run two complete virus scans with McAfee which only updated a couple of days ago so should recognise any viruses or worms. I've now also re-installed Windows twice (not a complete clean install, just trying to repair). Windows XP is still equally slow starting if I try to start it in Safe Mode, with or without networking. The machine is a Dell Dimension 2400, so not exactly state of the art but still less than 2 years old. I've also run the hardware check utility from the Advanced Boot menu and it says everything is OK. All the drivers on the device manager read ok too. Has anyone come across anything at all like this - it's got me completely stumped and all I can think of now is completely erasing the hard drive and starting from scratch, and I hesitate to do that because it's a major thing and I'd reallly like to know what has gone wrong with my system.

Cheers

Colin

have you tried a System Restore to before you tried the dongle, just a thought

Not sure if this will help, but go here to Dell http://support.euro.dell.com/support...os=WW1&osl=EN#

install the Chipset driver, this tells the target system which INF files to load, then RESTART your comp.

SET A SYSTEM RESTORE POINT BEFORE INSTALLING JUST IN CASE

Hope this helps