One Laptop stuck on "Identifying" network at home, no issues elsewhere

Hi all,

I’m having what seems to me a weird networking problem. I’ve spent the last day looking up and trying suggestions online to no avail, so thought I’d describe it here and see if anyone has any other ideas.
Here’s what’s happened:

2 days ago, my Gateway laptop running Windows 7 (Home Premium, 64bit) began to intermittently lose internet connection. I’d have connection long enough to click through a few links (about 30 seconds maybe), but then lose it and get the yellow warning triangle on the networking icon. Any webpages loading would eventually time out. After a minute or so, the connection would be back, only to go out again soon thereafter.

I contacted my ISP (Suddenlink) when this began (Sunday) and they said they’d had some outages reported. However, my wife’s laptop had no issues, nor did my tablet or Xbox – I was able to stream an entire baseball game Sunday afternoon, while continuing to have intermittent connection on my laptop.

Monday morning, this was still happening, so I started searching for ideas online. I confirmed that the connection worked fine when wired to the router. I tried various things, none of which resolved the problem. I am sure I won’t remember them all, but here are what I do remember:

*Powered modem and router off and back on
*Ran complete malwarebytes scan and MSE scan (found nothing)
*Disabled and enabled wireless card
*Turned off windows firewall, tried to connect, no dice, turned it back on
*Did a system restore to several days before the problem started
*Changed it from automatic DNS to an assigned DNS server (tried both Google’s and OpenDNS’s)
*Changed it from automatically assigned IP to manually configured (I wasn’t sure what IP address to assign. What I did was find the IP address on my wife’s laptop and replace the last number, which was 2 for her, with a 5.)
*Cleared (flush?) the DNS cache
*I also reset a few things in the command prompt, but I can’t remember what and now can’t find the website that suggested that. I believe they have returned 3 things having to do with tcp to defaults?

I attempted to update the firmware on my Linksys router, but foolishly forgot to plug in the LAN and it lost connection mid-update. After that, the internet didn’t work for any device in the house. Oops.

I went out to buy a new router and while I was out took my laptop to a Panera to try to determine whether the problem was with the router or my computer. I surfed the net for an hour there and never lost connection.

Confidently believing to have pinpointed the router as the problem, I set up my new router. Internet again works fine for all other devices on the network. Internet works fine when I plug my laptop into the router with an Ethernet cable. But, my laptop can’t connect wirelessly. In the Network and Sharing Center, the wireless connection gets stuck on “Identifying” for about 10 seconds, then the icons briefly indicate a connection, then it immediately goes back to “Identifying.” This repeats indefinitely.

I’ve got absolutely no computer or networking expertise, so I’m out of ideas. If the other computers on our home network weren't working, I'd think the problem was with the router or modem. If my computer hadn't worked on a differnet network, I'd think that the problem was with the computer, maybe the wireless cared? But now I don't know what to think!

I attempted to contact Gateway support, but apparently my warranty has expired. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Folks in the threads I read tend to ask for ipconfig /all, so I’ll go ahead and post that. If there’s any other info that would be helpful, please just ask.

Thanks!
Steve

C:\Windows\system32>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Steve-PC
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : Belkin

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Belkin
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Atheros AR5B97 Wireless Network Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : EC-55-F9-22-52-53
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::cd3:5a3c:4afc:9d67%11(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.4(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, June 04, 2013 10:48:37 AM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Friday, July 11, 2149 5:20:41 PM
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 317478393
DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-15-07-17-75-1C-75-08-DD-05-86

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Belkin
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom NetLink (TM) Gigabit Ethernet
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 1C-75-08-DD-05-86
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::5008:15de:5d62:855c%10(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.3(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, June 04, 2013 6:46:48 AM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Friday, July 11, 2149 5:20:41 PM
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 234885144
DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-15-07-17-75-1C-75-08-DD-05-86

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter isatap.{9440C0E9-37D4-4F9A-98DC-F754E8CD9AE0}:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter isatap.{F8739238-7E79-4722-B69D-225C2354247A}:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #3
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

From the ipconfig you are showing a valid IP for both connections so most likely something is blocking the wireless from connecting. Most likely which ever third party anti virus software you have may be blocking the connection.

Removing the Atheros wireless driver in Device Manager and rebooting may also help to get the correct driver installed.

Also it's best to go to the Network and Sharing Center, look left for "Manage Wireless Connections" remove the old profile and create a new one using the new credentials. I really don't see any problems at all with the ipconfig and you should be connected.

You could also try uninstalling which ever third party A/V is being used with the special uninstall tool.

System Restore

Thanks for your response.

I did do a system restore to a few days before the problems started, but perhaps I should go even further back? Another option might be restore Windows 7 to original configuration. My computer came with an option to do this, but it will also erase all my programs, so seems like a pretty extreme move and I'm not sure it's worth it.

As far as I can tell, Microsoft Security Essentials is the only security program active. I do have Malwarebytes installed, but that doesn't run continuous antivirus, does it? Perhaps I'll uninstall just in case.

I'm here to throw a wrench into the mix, and I hope I'm wrong. I think the wireless card in the laptop is on the way out. He said that everyone else had connectivity at home. And, I noticed that he had connectivity elsewhere, but I think that might be attributed to higher powered access points. I'll leave it up to the hardware gurus around here to find a way to confirm one way or the other, but that's my two cents.

Thanks: I was thinking it might be the wireless card until it worked on a different network. Didn't consider that it could be breaking but not broken. If anyone knows of a way to confirm that, that'd be great. (other than buying and installing a new one, I guess, but in the meantime, I'll look into how much they cost).

Thanks again,
Steve