Home network help

[JonMad]

Yeah, needle in a haystack and all that.

Anyway…
- my wife’s Win10 laptop has stopped being able to connect to the Internet. It was working earlier this evening.
- all my other devices (the ones I’ve tested at least) can connect to the Internet and to my router’s homepage on http://router-ip
- from my phone I can see in the router that my wife’s laptop is connected
- from her laptop I can ping the router-ip but not connect to it in a browser (Edge or Chrome), says DNS is not responding.
- same issue whether her laptop is on WiFi or Wired connection into the back of the router
- ipconfig /all lists her ip, and Default Gateway, DHCP and DNS Servers all as the router-ip. Subnet mask as expected 255.255.255.0
- tried ipconfig /release, /renew, /flushdns and /registerdns
- tried turning router and laptop off and on again, several times.
- tried netsh winsock reset - no change
- tried connecting the laptop to my phone hotspot - different IPs but same issue - ‘No Internet’

Not sure what to try next! Normally I’m always able to connect to the router at least, on a wired connection, but even that’s not working.

[RobYob]

Factory reset the router? (Advanced turning it off and on again)

I had really weird issues with my (cheap/free) two year old router from my ISP and turning off and on again didn't help but a reset did.

[DeskJockey]

If the issue persists when trying a different network (your phone hotspot) then the router is unlikely to be at fault.

Have you tried using a wired connection to see if it is the NIC that's developed a fault?
Network troubleshooter?
Uninstall the driver and try again?

[JonMad]

If the issue persists when trying a different network (your phone hotspot) then the router is unlikely to be at fault.

Have you tried using a wired connection to see if it is the NIC that's developed a fault?
Network troubleshooter?
Uninstall the driver and try again?

That's what made me try using my hotspot. Still got DNS_PROBE_NO_INTERNET_FOUND - same as via the router.
Wired connection to the router made no difference. Weird not even being able to browse to the router's homepage even when the network connection has picked that up as the gateway address.

Driver is one thing I haven't tried yet, due to not yet finding an exact match - I found one for a '[name] (rev D)' of the card, but mine's not labelled as that - and also the annoyance of having to download it on another machine then transfer via USB (not really much of a hassle but I didn't want to start making too much noise late last night when I was investigating).

[DeskJockey]

Try if you can roll them back, there'll be some in Windows driver store, which might work. Even just a fresh start could work.

Have you tried setting the DNS manually to something like 8.8.8.8? See if that fixes it.

[JonMad]

Tried 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4 and that made it worse if anything (couldn't ping them either), which was surprising as when I found that I thought I was onto something.

This one may work - current version is without the .2 https://drivers.softpedia.com/get/NETWO ... -bit.shtml
Or as you suggest. above. Thanks.
But it wasn't working wired either, which uses a different driver...

[DeskJockey]

Did it do any updates earlier in the day? Have you checked for updated firmware?

Is the WiFi and NIC the same device?

[JonMad]

Did it do any updates earlier in the day? Have you checked for updated firmware?

Is the WiFi and NIC the same device?

I think the Wifi and wired network use different devices. The dates of the files in the system folder that the driver properties referenced were from 2019, so I don't think it's been updated (clicking on 'Update Driver' said it was up to date, but I guess that's just looking at what else is on the system, if it can't get to the Internet to check anything else)

[DeskJockey]

I meant Windows Updates, sorry.

Have you checked if it is a known issue with that make/model?

[JonMad]

I meant Windows Updates, sorry.

Have you checked if it is a known issue with that make/model?

Where are the Windows Updates logged?
Googled the adapter details, didn't see anything obvious

[DeskJockey]

Err... Somewhere? Don't honestly know, but I'd guess in the Event log.

Edit: what browser are you using? Chrome (and perhaps Chromium based browsers) apparently have their own DNS cache. Could be something with that?

[Matty]

So it's pinging back, but can't open the page on http://router-ip?
And it can't ping anything externally like 8.8.8.8 but other devices can?

I'd be suprised if this was related to drivers if it's happening on both wireless and the NIC. Probably more relatated to the networking stack on Windows as it's effecting both.

Have you tried running Windows network troubleshooter? I know you've already reset winsock but it does reset some other services.
Were there any Windows updates installed just before it broke? Try uninstalling those.
If you do want to reset a driver, just delete it but don't tick the 'delete driver' box - then just reboot and it'll re-install itself. You can also just click "roll back to previous" if one has been installed recently (see above - Windows updates)

Sometimes though, Windows doing Windows things...it can be easier just to back up and wipe it. Or just upgrade to Windows 11. I typically use situations like this to start a nice fresh/clean build.

[JonMad]

Fixed.

Found the folder for Windows Update logs.
Scanned through Event Monitor for anything around the time of an update that was possibly when the problem started.
Happened to spot an error that occurred around that time:

The name "WORKGROUP :1d" could not be registered on the interface with IP address [wife's laptop]. The computer with the IP address [raspberry pi] did not allow the name to be claimed by this computer.

I renamed the computer, rebooted it, and networking sprang back into life.

I hadn't mentioned the Pi. Running Pi-hole . Which I was using as the DHCP and DNS server (set accordingly, in my router) to do ad-blocking, but a few months ago I reset the router back to doing DHCP and DNS back to 'Auto' (assuming that put it back to default)... as having the pi in the loop was (ha!) causing issues.

I had rebooted the pi last night to see if that fixed things, in case pi-hole was holding onto something, but that didn't help.
Maybe coincidence that wife's computer was the first affected?

I've flushed pi-hole's network table now, fwiw. I hadn't uninstalled pi-hole even though I stopped using it. I might now though.

Thanks for all the help.

[DeskJockey]

Good it is sorted.