No Internet Access but still able to pull up web pages?

[loganzz72]

Have a weird problem that creeped in on me yesterday...I came home to find that my Windows 7 rig told me that I didn't have internet access yet I was still able to pull up web pages and surf. I tried rebooting my computer to see if it was just a anomaly but it came back after full boot. Opened my networking connection to my Home Network and found that I was connected to the network but not to the internet. I recently replaced my router with a Netgear N900 and have it wired via Ethernet cable. Other wireless devices connected to it work fine also. I have not rebooted my router yet due to the fact my girl was using it for her work at the time but wasnt sure if that was the issue since she is connecting fine wirelessly and I HAVE NEVER had any issue when hard wiring my rig to the router.

Just to reiterate the problem. My rig says its NOT connected to the internet but I am ABLE to surf still. Has anyone ever seen this issue? If so can anyone give me a fix to this issue?

Thanks

 

[boosted1g]

Try going to websites you have not gone to before, you could still have cached websites so you are loading a saved copy of that site.

If you still have access to sites I would not worry about it much, windows false reporting internet connectivity (or the lack of) is not uncommon at all.

 

[Chris Scott 84]

I've had this issue in the past, and I think it's just down to some dodgy Windows coding. You end up getting a false negative if Windows cannot resolve an IP address using a DNS server request. It does this using a protocol called NCSI.

NCSI performs a DNS lookup on www.msftncsi.com, then requests http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt. This file is a plain-text file and contains only the text Microsoft NCSI.
NCSI sends a DNS lookup request for dns.msftncsi.com. This DNS address should resolve to 131.107.255.255. If the address does not match, then it is assumed that the internet connection is not functioning correctly.

As for a fix, assuming it isn't cached pages being loaded, mine fixed itself. I'd give it a bit of time to see if the problem resolves itself before delving in to registry key edits and the like to get it fixed. The fix just gives you a false positive until you change the regkey again, so it just swaps one falsehood for another.

 

[loganzz72]

I've had this issue in the past, and I think it's just down to some dodgy Windows coding. You end up getting a false negative if Windows cannot resolve an IP address using a DNS server request. It does this using a protocol called NCSI.

NCSI performs a DNS lookup on www.msftncsi.com, then requests http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt. This file is a plain-text file and contains only the text Microsoft NCSI.
NCSI sends a DNS lookup request for dns.msftncsi.com. This DNS address should resolve to 131.107.255.255. If the address does not match, then it is assumed that the internet connection is not functioning correctly.

As for a fix, assuming it isn't cached pages being loaded, mine fixed itself. I'd give it a bit of time to see if the problem resolves itself before delving in to registry key edits and the like to get it fixed. The fix just gives you a false positive until you change the regkey again, so it just swaps one falsehood for another.

Thanks for the rapid replies on this issue Chris/boosted. I admit I didn't take the time to investigate it fully and realized that I didn't clear my cache before testing the internet. I will do this to confirm as soon as possible.

Thanks again.