On Sat, 23 Jun 2012 20:11:32 +0000, alpsoandso
wrote:


I have an absolutely interesting development. No success but...

The problem struck again. This time on the fresh XP test install I made
on a spare 80 gig HD a few days ago. I installed XP on 20 june, and it
looked fine up until 23 june 2012 at about 1 am when I had decided to
compare the output of a working install of XP on that system with the
ipconfig output of an install that showed network cable unplugged. As
soon as it booted up I saw the broken network icon in the lower right of
the bar.
I kept a log of my activity on this test install. It may hold the key?
The fresh install now reports a network cable is disconnected. Just like
all the other re-installs I made this year eventually do. WHY is this
happening?
I put the original HD back in and booted to debian/linux (dual boot) ,
the internet works fine, no problems. If I boot up to the windows
partition on that disk.. .. network cable unplugged, no internet access.
Same if I boot from the fresh install 80 gig test hard drive.

I managed to run ipconfig and direct the output to a text file. The
output is identical on both the fresh test install and the original
install on the original HD (getting confusing yet?)

Windows IP Configuration
Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : a7v8x
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : ASUSTeK/Broadcom 440x 10/100
Integrated Controller
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-E0-18-E0-C4-0C

I do not know what this means except the obvious "media disconnected".
I also tested whether the fresh install would have network connectivity
from safe mode. It did not, though I did not see the broken network icon
on lower right of bar. Firefox displayed a message about not being able
to connect. The ipconfig /all output in safe mode was identical to that
obtained in a regular boot on the same system.

I took some screen shot photos of the various network controller
settings (device manager) as well as the network connection settings
(control panel) while the test install was working.
As far as I can tell the settings are the same for when the test HD had
network connectivity and after connectivity failed (no changes seen).

The last 2 microsoft updates that went onto that test setup were
..KB2345886 and KB970430. They were installed on 21 june 2012 at about
noon. They system booted fine later that day (2 pm) and on the 22 june
as well. 23 of june the unplugged cable problem struck. I have booted to
linux several times and it works. From XP... unplugged cable problem.

????? What is going on?????
Does the ipconfig hold any clues?

I don't see anything useful in the output of ipconfig. Did Device
Manager show anything interesting?

At this point, I'm thinking it's possibly a broken TCP/IP stack, (but
reinstalling Windows would have fixed it unless you perhaps have a
favorite little app that you like to install that breaks it again), a
bad NIC driver, (are you using the latest driver?), a bad Ethernet
cable, etc. You're finding that it works when you boot to Linux, which
I'm using as a clue, but I don't know if you'd run into a problem if
you stayed in Linux for any length of time.