HCHTech
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 3,829
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA - USA
It all started innocently enough with an onsite appointment Friday to "cleanup" my customer's teen-aged daughter's laptop. It's a fairly recent HP Envy laptop, running Windows 10, upgraded from 8.
Sure enough it was running like a dog. She had remnants of 4 different antivirus programs. The original pre-installed version of McAfee, mostly uninstalled when the now-expired version of Webroot was installed. I also found Avast folders and Windows defender was enabled. Wireless internet was working when I started.
Oddly enough, no sign of infection, but TONS of temporary internet files, junk toolbars, the standard stuff. So I did a standard cleanup, removed all of the previous antivirus programs & junkware. Somewhere along the way, I lost internet - the wifi was connected, but no internet access as the network was shown as "unidentified - no access". I connect to the wifi with my laptop, it works fine.
I tried the standard things onsite, cycled the wifi on and off, disabled and re-enabled the adapters, removed the network cards from device manager, rebooted and let them redetect -which they did successfully, but still no access. Made it forget the wireless network and connected again, tried a manual reset of the TCP/IP stack, forcing a static IP in the correct range & correct IP for the gateway, google DNS, no dice. Reset the winsock & firewall, turn the firewall off, no help. System restore was off, so no restore points to go back to. After spinning my wheels for a bit, I said I had to take it to do some further diagnosis and away I went. "Please don't wipe the disk if you can avoid it - she has tons of programs". "Ok", I said, "If I can avoid it, I will".
Back at the shop, same deal, no internet in either wifi or wired connection - unidentified network. I downloaded the latest drivers for the network cards and installed them successfully - no change. I removed the hard disk, it passed gsmartcontrol scans, but chkdsk reported errors and it needed to scan. So I backed up the files then did full virus and malware scans while it was slaved to a working computer - there were a few things found, mostly toolbar leftovers - also one trojan identified in the Windows.old folder. I removed those and ran a chkdsk while the drive was slaved to a working machine. It identified and repaired several errors.
I remounted the drive in the laptop and booted it up, no change in network status, of course. I ran SFC, no errors found. I ran a DISM /healthcheck - no corruption found, but ran a /restorehealth anyway. No change after the final reboot -still no internet. Man, why did I say I wouldn't nuke it - haha.
It was getting late, so I started a tweaking all-in-one run and let it go overnight. I hate using that tool, it's like admitting failure. Anyway, the next morning, I checked it again, the all-on-one tool finished successfully, and rebooted the machine. Still no internet access on either wifi or wired adapter.
I decided I had better boot from a linux disk and see if the adapters work there - no surprise, they work fine when running Mint.
So next, I did an inplace-upgrade using a Win10 image created on 10/5/16. Incredibly, this works. I have internet on both a 2.4 and 5.0 wireless connection, and the wired connection works as well. Wow, why didn't I do this step earlier? I enable Defender for now and run a scan - nothing found. Huzzah.
I make a restore point, then check for updates to finish up the job. It loads the latest cumulative update fine, and I'm just doing a final check before writing up the invoice when I notice there is no internet again - you have got to be kidding me. Well, at least this time I have a restore point to go back to. I do so and it DOESN'T WORK. successful restore, still no internet. unidentified network.
We'll I've already lost money on this job, so I run another in-place upgrade, which results in working internet again. I disable driver updates in system properties, disconnect the internet and stop to write this post.
It's possible that checking for updates updated the network drivers which broke things, or it's possible that something in the latest cumulative update disagrees with the network cards. It's also possible that there is nothing left to do but nuke it and start over. At this point it works, but I have no confidence that it will keep working after it gets updates again.
So...how was YOUR weekend?
Sure enough it was running like a dog. She had remnants of 4 different antivirus programs. The original pre-installed version of McAfee, mostly uninstalled when the now-expired version of Webroot was installed. I also found Avast folders and Windows defender was enabled. Wireless internet was working when I started.
Oddly enough, no sign of infection, but TONS of temporary internet files, junk toolbars, the standard stuff. So I did a standard cleanup, removed all of the previous antivirus programs & junkware. Somewhere along the way, I lost internet - the wifi was connected, but no internet access as the network was shown as "unidentified - no access". I connect to the wifi with my laptop, it works fine.
I tried the standard things onsite, cycled the wifi on and off, disabled and re-enabled the adapters, removed the network cards from device manager, rebooted and let them redetect -which they did successfully, but still no access. Made it forget the wireless network and connected again, tried a manual reset of the TCP/IP stack, forcing a static IP in the correct range & correct IP for the gateway, google DNS, no dice. Reset the winsock & firewall, turn the firewall off, no help. System restore was off, so no restore points to go back to. After spinning my wheels for a bit, I said I had to take it to do some further diagnosis and away I went. "Please don't wipe the disk if you can avoid it - she has tons of programs". "Ok", I said, "If I can avoid it, I will".
Back at the shop, same deal, no internet in either wifi or wired connection - unidentified network. I downloaded the latest drivers for the network cards and installed them successfully - no change. I removed the hard disk, it passed gsmartcontrol scans, but chkdsk reported errors and it needed to scan. So I backed up the files then did full virus and malware scans while it was slaved to a working computer - there were a few things found, mostly toolbar leftovers - also one trojan identified in the Windows.old folder. I removed those and ran a chkdsk while the drive was slaved to a working machine. It identified and repaired several errors.
I remounted the drive in the laptop and booted it up, no change in network status, of course. I ran SFC, no errors found. I ran a DISM /healthcheck - no corruption found, but ran a /restorehealth anyway. No change after the final reboot -still no internet. Man, why did I say I wouldn't nuke it - haha.
It was getting late, so I started a tweaking all-in-one run and let it go overnight. I hate using that tool, it's like admitting failure. Anyway, the next morning, I checked it again, the all-on-one tool finished successfully, and rebooted the machine. Still no internet access on either wifi or wired adapter.
I decided I had better boot from a linux disk and see if the adapters work there - no surprise, they work fine when running Mint.
So next, I did an inplace-upgrade using a Win10 image created on 10/5/16. Incredibly, this works. I have internet on both a 2.4 and 5.0 wireless connection, and the wired connection works as well. Wow, why didn't I do this step earlier? I enable Defender for now and run a scan - nothing found. Huzzah.
I make a restore point, then check for updates to finish up the job. It loads the latest cumulative update fine, and I'm just doing a final check before writing up the invoice when I notice there is no internet again - you have got to be kidding me. Well, at least this time I have a restore point to go back to. I do so and it DOESN'T WORK. successful restore, still no internet. unidentified network.
We'll I've already lost money on this job, so I run another in-place upgrade, which results in working internet again. I disable driver updates in system properties, disconnect the internet and stop to write this post.
It's possible that checking for updates updated the network drivers which broke things, or it's possible that something in the latest cumulative update disagrees with the network cards. It's also possible that there is nothing left to do but nuke it and start over. At this point it works, but I have no confidence that it will keep working after it gets updates again.
So...how was YOUR weekend?
