Laptop will not connect to one website, others fine.

Dr_Bob

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Hello Gentlemen/Ladies,

Not sure if this is the correct location for this posting, so sorry to the mods if this has to be moved.

I have officially been stumped. I have a customer's house with two computers, a HP Desktop w/ XP and a Vista Laptop. Both work as they should except the Laptop will not connect to one website, ncsbank.com. That is the ONLY website this Laptop has trouble with regardless of Browser. Tried Chrome, FF, and IE. Desktop connects fine to it, as do phones, and my personal computer. It had Norton Internet Security Suite which I figured was blocking/messing with the connection. I uninstalled it and ran CCleaner, ipconfig /flushdns, ipconfig /release and /renew and it still wouldn't work. Disabled the Windows Firewall and Defender and still no go. There isn't any other "security" software installed on this machine as there is hardly any other programs installed at all. If it wasn't for Quicken 10 installed, I would do a reinstall but I don't want to figure out how to back it up and have them find the disk that may be long gone.

I'm assuming they have Ping disabled at the server because I cannot Ping or Tracert it from any PC. It can't be an ISP(client side) issue because the Desktop connects just fine through the same ISP. What am I missing? Only thing that comes to mind would be maybe the MAC got blacklisted for some unknown reason.

Could use some ideas, because I'm fresh out.
Thanks.
 
You don't mention the hosts file? Check that out.

If you ping the website does it resolve to the correct ip address? Compare with one of the computers on the network that do work
 
You could rule out it being a Windows specific issue by trying in linux. If you still can't access the site with a live linux then I'd point at either the router blocking something or like you said, the bank. The router may have MAC address spoofing, worth a shot.

Rule out the router as well by bypassing it and ethernet directly to the modem.
 
You don't mention the hosts file? Check that out.

If you ping the website does it resolve to the correct ip address? Compare with one of the computers on the network that do work

If the bank entry IS in the hosts file, I would tell the client to contact the bank immediately.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Havent checked the Hosts file but not sure it will matter. No PC, at the clients or here at work, can Ping or fully Tracert the conical name or IP of the bank. This laptop has ran on two different networks with the same issue(two different ISPs and completely different router/modem setup).

The public IP of the client obviously isn't blocked due to the Desktop being able to access the site but not the Laptop.

Havent tried a Live CD yet, good call though. Ill try that today.
 
Also, its is a residential call so the network is very simplistic. No bouncing around internal servers or other firewalls to contend with.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Havent checked the Hosts file but not sure it will matter. No PC, at the clients or here at work, can Ping or fully Tracert the conical name or IP of the bank. This laptop has ran on two different networks with the same issue(two different ISPs and completely different router/modem setup).

The public IP of the client obviously isn't blocked due to the Desktop being able to access the site but not the Laptop.

Havent tried a Live CD yet, good call though. Ill try that today.

For the reasons you stated it is worth checking. Even though the ping won't fully carry out it will resolve the name to an ipaddress before the ping or trace. If there is an entry in the hosts file telling the browser to go to one ip address instead of the correct one then it could well be the issue. Wherever you place that laptop will have the issue. Compare the two ip addresses by pinging/tracert from both computers.
 
@Martyn - Correct, but Im assuming it is correct in the Hosts file as when a Ping is being performed from the laptop, it states {pinging ncsbank.com(206.188.192.86)} just as all other PCs Ive tried it from and the ping fails universally. I will still double check in the Hosts just to be 100% certain it isnt trying to redirect it to another IP.

@nlinecomputers On FF it says that the server is taking too long to respond, so timeout error. On IE, similar - states the general "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" as if it wasnt connected to a network although every other page works fine.
 
@Martyn - Correct, but Im assuming it is correct in the Hosts file as when a Ping is being performed from the laptop, it states {pinging ncsbank.com(206.188.192.86)} just as all other PCs Ive tried it from and the ping fails universally. I will still double check in the Hosts just to be 100% certain it isnt trying to redirect it to another IP.

@nlinecomputers On FF it says that the server is taking too long to respond, so timeout error. On IE, similar - states the general "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" as if it wasnt connected to a network although every other page works fine.

Sorry I must have missed that so it is resolving the ip address correctly but not going via a browser. I think maybe stick Wireshark on the computer and see what is happening.
 
I've run into this before. It was the router. Had to restart it a few times then bam! I've also had before where one computer could use the web, not see the wifi connected printer. That computer could ping the router but the router couldn't ping the computer. Same deal. Routers can be funky.

Hopefully this helps. I'm sure you've already ruled out the router.
 
Are they using a specific DNS on the laptop (e.g. OpenDns) or something? Try checking the IP properties to see if they're using static.
 
Have you been going through the same adapter in every case? Perhaps disable onboard adapters and try a USB ethernet adapter to see if it's something specific to the settings/driver for the onboard nic.
 
Honestly, it looks like the savvis.net backbones are having issues.. tested a few sites through their backbones and there is some pretty bad response times.

They did just launch a cloud storage service, like yesterday it looks like. Possibly related. How long has your client been having issues?

EDIT: Have you tried to possibly bump up the timeout times in FF and see if connects?
 
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@Freemont - Very Doubtful it is the adapter as it works perfect on similar websites and all other websites, HTTP or HTTPS

@eric76 - No specific DNS client and dynamically set IP schema

@djyox - This has happened on two different routers/modems so unlikely both have the same issue.

@Kisk - This originally happened about 7 months ago and the client just told me about it because they could still access the ncsbank.com on the Desktop. And I have only been trying the HTTP.

Every computer I try and access ncsbank.com works EXCEPT that laptop. Being Vista and previously having Norton installed, Im assuming it is a Windows malfunction and the Linux Live CD will function perfectly. If not, then that would be a good shove in the MAC blacklisted area.

@Martyn - Wireshark might not be a bad choice at this point to see what it can find.
 
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