Can only access Google / Yahoo websites

I have read other similar threads but none of them seem to be exactly my problem.

I have an Acer Aspire 5742z-4404 laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit. There are times that I am unable to access any website except Google or Yahoo. This seems to happen intermittently. I am able to use IE9 or Firefox for a few minutes to a couple hours and then I can't pull up any site except Google and sometimes Yahoo. Any other site gives me a message, "The connection to the server was reset" on Firefox, or something like that. IE simply tells me it is unable to display the page. If I walk away for a while (anywhere from 5-15 minutes) and then try to access a different site, it will work. I am currently working from a hotel room and have been in contact with their internet provider tech service numerous times. They have given me a static IP, a new default gateway, new DNS server addresses and a proxy server. These seemed to help temporarily, but then the same issue would arise again. I always have a good connection to the network.

I took my laptop back to my home wireless network where I never had issues before. Now I am having the same problem there. I have tried dnsflush, which seemed to work initially but now has little or no effect. I am able to ping the websites that will not pull up. I tried uninstalling Avast! anti virus and reinstalling with no effect. I've scanned for viruses (Avast!) and malware/adware (Spybot S&D) several times with no results. The other Windows 7 computers on my home wireless network have no issues, nor does my Android phone. The Android phone works without any issues at the hotel and on the home network as well. It appears that it is something is askew with this particular computer.

Any ideas ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Sounds like a DNS issue, have you manually set this yourself?

Try going to your command prompt by going to your start menu, typing in CMD and running the search result that comes up then type in "ping websitegoeshere.com" <= But put the website you're trying to go there instead of my example.

If you're getting good response but still cant browse let us know. If you get no response but other computers/phones can see it then it'll be either DNS or Routing issue.

I have manually set the DNS with no success; I still have the same issue. I am able to ping the websites I can't access through a browser. I disabled Internet Explorer in Windows and used only Firefox. That seemed to help for a few minutes, but then I started having the same issues again. Someone else told me to uninstall the wireless adapter and reinstall it. I've done that but still have some issues.

Any other ideas?

LtV

ltvvaughn said:

I have manually set the DNS with no success; I still have the same issue. I am able to ping the websites I can't access through a browser. I disabled Internet Explorer in Windows and used only Firefox. That seemed to help for a few minutes, but then I started having the same issues again. Someone else told me to uninstall the wireless adapter and reinstall it. I've done that but still have some issues.

Any other ideas?

LtV

It sounds like winsock or TCP/IP is messed up.

Winsock entries tells Windows 7 how to access your network services. Additionally, your TCP/IP protocol can be corrupted. The TCP/IP protocol is a stack of 4 layers that includes several transport layers, but when this stack is corrupt you will constantly have connectivity issues.

Enter the following commands into an elevated command prompt one at a time, hit enter after each one then reboot the system. :)

netsh winsock reset catalog (reset winsock entries)

netsh int ip reset reset.log hit (reset TCP/IP stack)

chev65,

Thanks for the GREAT info! I ran the two commands as you suggested and things cleared up. I waited a couple of days to see if it would stay working and it has.

Thanks again for your wisdom!

LtV

Sorry to say that the problem is back. I run the "netsh" commands and reboot. It helps for a while but then the problem returns. Sometimes I can run the commands and it will work without rebooting. Sometimes I can pull up several different Google sites and then things will work. I'm beginning to think it has something to do with Google and something they put on my machine. There are tons of others having the same issue. It doesn't seem to matter whether its a MAC or PC. The only device I can say I haven't seen having this problem is my phone. Some are having the problem on wireless networks and others on a wired connection.

Any ideas on what might be causing this to reoccur? It's becoming very annoying, not to mention cutting into productivity!

HELP ! ! !

LtV

ltvvaughn said:

Sorry to say that the problem is back. I run the "netsh" commands and reboot. It helps for a while but then the problem returns. Sometimes I can run the commands and it will work without rebooting. Sometimes I can pull up several different Google sites and then things will work. I'm beginning to think it has something to do with Google and something they put on my machine. There are tons of others having the same issue. It doesn't seem to matter whether its a MAC or PC. The only device I can say I haven't seen having this problem is my phone. Some are having the problem on wireless networks and others on a wired connection.

Any ideas on what might be causing this to reoccur? It's becoming very annoying, not to mention cutting into productivity!

HELP ! ! !
LtV

Rather than a networking problem it sounds like a virus is on your system, have you run any scans with malware bytes or any others?

Which A/V software are you running?

I am using Avast! anti virus and Spybot S&D. I've run several virus scans including boot time scans and have no issues. I have now removed nearly everything "Google" on my machine. I uninstalled Google Earth and removed every trace in the registry with a registry cleaner (Auslogics). It seems to have helped but I have had one incident since removing it. It cleared up very quickly so I'm not sure it was due to the same issue I've been having. I haven't checked to see if anything "Google" has reappeared yet.

I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but I was having problems with googleads.com showing up in my browser (IE9). I would go to a website and when I would click on the back arrow, nothing would happen. I right clicked on the back arrow and would see "googleads". I would have to go back 2-5 times to get past all the "googleads". It was shortly after this began that I started having the problem of being able to get only the "Google" websites sometimes.

I've found that several people have had both issues but I never put the two together until just recently.

LtV

ltvvaughn said:

I am using Avast! anti virus and Spybot S&D. I've run several virus scans including boot time scans and have no issues. I have now removed nearly everything "Google" on my machine. I uninstalled Google Earth and removed every trace in the registry with a registry cleaner (Auslogics). It seems to have helped but I have had one incident since removing it. It cleared up very quickly so I'm not sure it was due to the same issue I've been having. I haven't checked to see if anything "Google" has reappeared yet.

I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but I was having problems with googleads.com showing up in my browser (IE9). I would go to a website and when I would click on the back arrow, nothing would happen. I right clicked on the back arrow and would see "googleads". I would have to go back 2-5 times to get past all the "googleads". It was shortly after this began that I started having the problem of being able to get only the "Google" websites sometimes.

I've found that several people have had both issues but I never put the two together until just recently.

LtV

Yes I know that you mean, Google stuff with all it's endless add on crap is just too intrusive for me also so I don't use Google anymore.

I detest programs that take over your entire system as they eventually cause problems "Norton, Nero now Google and so on" and that is just what Google has turned into.

If you are still having problems I have another network reset tool that will flush the DNS cache among other things.

I searched the registry again and found several items like "google.it" "goofgle.it" etc. There are around 50 or so entries that are in the registry at least twice (as outlined below). I went throught them and deleted them all. When I deleted the last one ("ygoogle.it") and continued searching the registry, the search went back up and the first "google.it" I had deleted was there again. I tried this several times with the same results. The entries are under "Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains" and also ". . .\EscDomains".

I also wanted to change the default address bar search engine in Firefox. I went to about:config and found nothing in the string that delineates the default search engine. I was able to change it though.

I'd like to get rid of all the "google" entries under "Domains" in the registry if possible. Any ideas?

LtV