Hallo,

I am experiencing trouble with my Windows XP Home (german edition with SP 2)
computer for a couple of days now. I have a DSL connection through an
DSL-modem. My provider is T-Online. The problems began on Sat, Oct 8th. I
didn't change anything in the configuration.
This is what happened:
- Boot computer, log in, open broadband connection in order to login to ISP,
login accepted. Open browser and mail client, both don't work. But browser
shows no warning that there is no connection. It just tries loading and
loading. Never ends with a timeout error message.
- Rebooted my computer, logged in again. Now the security center warned that
the windows firewall wasn't active. I tried to open the firewall settings in
the system settings, but received an error ("Due to an unknown error the
settings for the firewall could not be opened."). Opened the services and
saw that several services where about to be started, but never really
started. All services are started by "svchost.exe -k netsvcs". The event
list doesn't show any errors.
- Let my anti virus software run over the hard disk. It's Sophos anti virus,
I updated it on Oct 5th. I never open unsecure e-mails or attachments, by
the way. So I am pretty sure it can't be a virus. Sophos anti virus didn't
find anything.

Since then I did several restarts of the computer and tried to figure out
things. Here are my further experiences:
- If I log myself into the computer as soon as the login screen appears, I
get the "firewall not active" warning. If I boot the computer, and wait for
like one or two minutes, and log in then, the firewall is able to start.
- If the firewall did not start, I cannot even open the broadband connection
dialog in order to connect to my ISP
- If the firewall is active, I can login to my ISP without any problem. I
opened a DOS box and tried ping on several URLs (www.yahoo.de etc.) and they
worked. So I seem to be connected.
- During the last three days I was able to connect to and work with the
internet three times. It is all decided directly after booting the computer.
If it works from the beginning, I can be online the whole night without
being kicked out ot anything. But this happened yesterday morning for the
last time. Since then, after every restart I either get the "firewall not
active" warning, or the firewall IS active, and I can connect, but still
browser and mail client do nothing.
- I did an "sfc /scannow" and was asked to insert the XP CD, which I did.
Thus some files seem to have been restored, but nothing changed.
- I called the ISP's support, they say that the DSL connection (the
hardware) itself is fine. Their guess is a configuration problem with the
network card. I uninstalled the driver, and rebooted again. The network card
driver was installed newly, but the problems sustain.
- I did a system restore to Oct 5th two times, and after the following
reboot I was able to use the internet. One reboot later I was unable again.

Does anybody have any idea what this could be? What I am wondering about is
that the login to the ISP works and that PING works. So there IS a
connection. But why can't other high level applications not use it. Some
changes in the registry?

I will try the WinsockXPFix next. And maybe "netsh winsock reset".

I would appreciate any form of help or hint very much.

Regards,

Christian Kirchhoff