I have internet connection, but browsers won't load

[Todddster]

I have internet access, but browsers will not work. I have windows 8.1 on an hp envy. I have tried restore points (those come up as bad points) and i have tried resetting the winsock and ip's. I have allowed firefox, IE, and chrome in my firewalls, all to no avail. I have successfully pinged my router and 8.8.8.8. I cannot ping www.google.com. I have ran scans at the command prompt, but have found that unsuccessful. Any new ideas to try?

I am on a wireless router (2Wire) and all the other devices and computers in the house work fine. The problem began after my computer froze and i rebooted. I can see my computer on the home network and i can use programs such as skype and garry's mod.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

 

[Emerald]

what is your DNS Server IP on your computer?

try static DNS IP 206.13.30.12 or 206.13.29.12

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Okay what happens when you WIRED into the router? Can you access the Internet then? Remove any firewalls (you don't need any firewalls when at home on your own network), and try Chrome again? Any luck?

If still no luck and you can't get ANY HTTP access (Garry's Mod and Skype are on a different 'PORT' type then port 80 - HTTP), then most likely there is a bug on the computer. Remove any antivirus you have, and on a separate computer download from www.filehippo.com AVG or AVATS! AND then download Malwarebytes, and install on the Envy. Scan FULL and see if they can clean any of it off. YOU MAY need to just suck it up and run the full SYSTEM RECOVERY back to factory and start over again.

 

[Todddster]

Still cant connect even when wired. Downloaded AVast and malwarebytes and removed their suggestions. Still cant connect via a browser and malwarebytes could not update its program.

 

[Emerald]

not being able to ping a URL usually points to a DNS Server issue

 

[Emerald]

what happens when you type 98.138.252.30 into the browser instead of www.yahoo.com

 

[Emerald]

make sure the Proxy setting are not enabled under the internet options

 

[Todddster]

make sure the Proxy setting are not enabled under the internet options

No luck when i type the numeric ip address instead of yahoo.com. Also, proxy is not enabled. When i try to update windows, i get an immediate response that there was a problem checking for updates. Still puzzled that i can use skype and log into garry's mod which is steam based. Hmmmm. I long for the simple days of windows 98.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

@OP: In order for each application to 'communicate' over a network, there needs to be some sort of traffic control, because otherwise your Youtube video would be sent instead of your email instead of your file down or instead of connecting to the Database system. So there are 65000 PORTS, each port is assigned one type of traffic. Garry's Mod and Skype don't use the 'Web Page" port which is Port 80. When you get email it was Port 119 and so on. So if there is a problem with your internet connection ALL ports would be effected. As there is ONLY the Web Port your getting redirected (the idea of the Malware and Proxy) that any request over Port 80 FAILS.

At this point this is a software issue, probably some sort of malware. As your system is 'compromised' you can't salaveg your data off unless you will reinfect after all the work to rebuild and just be back tyo square one.

At this point I would HIGHLY suggest downloading DBAN from a second computer, make CD, wipe this computer drive, and reinstall Windows clean.

 

[Todddster]

@OP: In order for each application to 'communicate' over a network, there needs to be some sort of traffic control, because otherwise your Youtube video would be sent instead of your email instead of your file down or instead of connecting to the Database system. So there are 65000 PORTS, each port is assigned one type of traffic. Garry's Mod and Skype don't use the 'Web Page" port which is Port 80. When you get email it was Port 119 and so on. So if there is a problem with your internet connection ALL ports would be effected. As there is ONLY the Web Port your getting redirected (the idea of the Malware and Proxy) that any request over Port 80 FAILS.

At this point this is a software issue, probably some sort of malware. As your system is 'compromised' you can't salaveg your data off unless you will reinfect after all the work to rebuild and just be back tyo square one.

At this point I would HIGHLY suggest downloading DBAN from a second computer, make CD, wipe this computer drive, and reinstall Windows clean.

I think i have found the problem, but now need some additional help. After hours of researching and beating my head against the wall, i stopped working on the problem for a day. All the help kept mentioning a virus so i rechecked webroot's quarantine file. Low and behold, there were numerous files quarantined which reference registry keys and winsock2.

I googled this info, on another computer of course, and the panda security website popped up with info on the spabot.as virus. All the files in my webroot quarantine parallel the files that spabot.as creates.

My question: the panda security website had a removal/fix tool. In order to use it, do i need to restore the infected files from webroot and use panda's tool or? Kinda on unfamiliar ground here.

Thanks for all the assistance.

 

[Tom Tancredi]

Honestly I don't trust webroot, and seen a similiar instance of such 'software' do these things before. I personally check these links http://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/windows-7/janfeb-2014/ that are independent labs that test all the AV systems out there, and these are the ones I would trust (based of course on how well they work), and you can see webroot isn't among them. I have had a few people come to me with similiar circumstances (like yours) where some 'software' they got off the Internet Advertisement they followed as low cost AV, and like your instance sometime later are all fragged up.

IMHO My steps would be as follows;
1) Restore the files from Webroot
2) Remove Webroot
3) Reboot and test if you can get online, if so then pick up Panda's Free Cloud AV or grab AVG or AVAST from www.filehippo.com and download Malwarebytes. Have both Malwarebyes and which ever of the AVs you got do a full scan.

IF you still can't get online, any attempts to 'recover' will 'spread' the viruses/malware (if they aren't already on any thumb / ext drives you have) so your only hope is a clean reinstall as I mentioned.