Computer puzzle good enough to stump everyone....hope not...

Guest

i have an athon xp2400+
xp pro sp1
geforce 4 ti4200
512 ddr ram
norton systemworks 2004
school firewall i have no control over.....

heres is the deal......if anyone could help me with this problem it would be wonderful!

for the past 3 or 4 months my computer has been acting really weird, in that it wont connect to certain internet utilizing programs.....for example p2p programs will not connect.....kazaa....limewire.....etc.....bittorrent however works perfectly fine....

also no game browsers connect to the internet....ill use the ut2004 demo as an example......ill clikc the join button and the internet tab doesnt even light up so i can click on it let alone find a game.....this just started happening at the the same time that kazaa would not connect....

now my school has a firewall.....more like a packetshaper which effects internet gaming, as well as p2p programs....but it doesnt block them.....for example many people who live in my dorm can connect to kazaa....its just really slow (thats a diff story altogether however)

However, my computer will NOT connect regardless of how many times i install a program/game.....i have done numerous virus scans and nothing explains why this is happening.......I was thinking that maybe the school blocked those ports for my ip for whatever reason, however they would have notified me of such actions prior. on top of that they know people are using kazaa and stuff so there is no reason they would just blokc me......and if they were to block me why wouldnt they block bittorrnet as well?? considering i download using that 100% of the time......

So i have come to the conclusion that there is some foreign file in my windows folder or something like that, which is causing this inability to connect......beit a virus or i have no idea........

Is there anything that i can do to try to fix this besides formatting and reinstalling windows??? I really dont want to do this seeing as i have so many programs installed it would take forever to reinstall them and everything.......however on the same note....im tired not being able to connect to the internet in games......

is there a way to test if my ports have been blocked?

thanks a bunch for any help

Stinger

Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2004 2:31 am

it sounds like the firewall is shafting you, but thats just my opinion. And you better be careful... some colleges look down very harshly on downloading music. This might be a question reserved for techtv.com's forums, though. (Just as a note: I'm not questioning any ones technical know-how here, but most of those people in their know more then I ever will).

Move, buy a cable connection. ^_^; lol thats my best advice. A lot of schools don't want people downloading a lot and playing games, and sharing files - it bogs down their servers and makes internet connections very, very slow. It, by the sounds of it, probably has absolutely nothing with your software - especially if it's spread out through all of them like that. But just incase, take your tower to a friends house and test it on their internet connection - also do the same with someone in the same dorm as you.

But like said, tryout Techtv's place. See what they say.

Crazed Fan Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 268 Location: RC MI

For starters, download, update and run both Adaware (www.lavasoft.de) and Spybot Search and Destroy (www.security.kolla.de I think). This should pretty much get rid of any unwanted Spyware/adware which may be interfering with your internet/computer.

Keep in mind that when removing these items you may also lose functionality of some programs which you don't want to lose, like KaZaa or whatever. Be careful when selecting what to get rid of. I normally get rid of it all cause if a program has to install that crap, then I dont' want it.

Also check to see if you have viruses but that one is obvious.

Also, once you have run the spyware/adware programs look in your HSTS file and se if there are any unusal entries. Do a search for HOSTS on your drive and it will show up. Open in Notepad or Wordpad.

Usually there is only one entry that will be similar to this:

127.0.0.1 Localhost

You may have one or two more depending on what you are connecting to on your network, but it's possible you got hijacked in which case your HOSTS file will be filled with TONS of entries. Just delete all but the local host and save again. Make sure you run the adware/spyware software first though or you will just have to do this all over again.

The Hosts file is the first line of DNS your computer uses to know where to find web pages (or other TCP/IP computers). Normally it will not find any entries (Unless you put them there) and will then use the Internet DNS servers to find other computers and weeb pages on the Internet. Sometimes people write a bunch of entries in the HOSTS file and associate them with popular sites like google or whatever but put their own addresses instead. That way when you type google into the address bar and hit enter, it sends you to their web page instead.

I'm asking you to do this out of general good computer practice. Frankly it sounds as though you have invoked the firewall gods upon you.