Help! IE won't work with new NIC

[George Neuner]

Hi all,

I have an IE6 problem with a work-provided laptop (which means I have
limited ability to mess with it). The laptop is running XP Pro SP2
and has both an internal 802.11b NIC and a Netgear Super-G PCMCIA card
that I generally prefer to use.

So here's the problem: about a week ago, my Netgear card died and had
to be replaced. I replaced it with a new Netgear card, but IE refuses
to work with the new card *unless* the business VPN is active (which
routes all traffic through my office network and is overkill when I'm
at home and just want to look at something). All my other network
apps work normally (Outlook email, ping, nslookup, ftp) with or
without the VPN active. IE (and everything else) works fine with the
slow internal NIC regardless of the VPN being active.

It seems like IE is somehow locked into using the VPN when using the
Netgear connection, but I cannot find any IE settings that are
different between using the Netgear card and using the internal NIC.
More to the point, IE *used* to work with the old Netgear card and all
I did was replace it with a different one.

I have googled for similar problems and tried all the suggested
remedies: checking proxy settings, flushing DNS, checking host files,
etc. with no luck. Is there some setting hidden in the registry that
might tie IE to a particular device? I am totally perplexed by this
problem.

Any thoughts or suggestions?
George
--
for email reply remove "/" from address

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

How to troubleshoot network connectivity problems in Internet Explorer
[ignore APPLIES TO section if you're not running Vista or IE7]
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936211
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/

Post by George Neuner
Hi all,
I have an IE6 problem with a work-provided laptop (which means I have
limited ability to mess with it). The laptop is running XP Pro SP2
and has both an internal 802.11b NIC and a Netgear Super-G PCMCIA card
that I generally prefer to use.
So here's the problem: about a week ago, my Netgear card died and had
to be replaced. I replaced it with a new Netgear card, but IE refuses
to work with the new card *unless* the business VPN is active (which
routes all traffic through my office network and is overkill when I'm
at home and just want to look at something). All my other network
apps work normally (Outlook email, ping, nslookup, ftp) with or
without the VPN active. IE (and everything else) works fine with the
slow internal NIC regardless of the VPN being active.
It seems like IE is somehow locked into using the VPN when using the
Netgear connection, but I cannot find any IE settings that are
different between using the Netgear card and using the internal NIC.
More to the point, IE *used* to work with the old Netgear card and all
I did was replace it with a different one.
I have googled for similar problems and tried all the suggested
remedies: checking proxy settings, flushing DNS, checking host files,
etc. with no luck. Is there some setting hidden in the registry that
might tie IE to a particular device? I am totally perplexed by this
problem.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
George

[George Neuner]

On Sat, 10 May 2008 21:43:02 -0400, "PA Bear [MS MVP]"

Post by PA Bear [MS MVP]
How to troubleshoot network connectivity problems in Internet Explorer
[ignore APPLIES TO section if you're not running Vista or IE7]
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936211
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/

Nothing in that article is applicable. ALL of my other network
applications are functioning normally - only IE6 is misbehaving.

From my home network using the internal 11b NIC, all applications
including IE6 work as expected:

- VPN off, proxy off - all apps work through my network
- VPN off, proxy on - IE6 doesn't work (expects VPN),
other apps work through my network
- VPN on, proxy off - all apps work through VPN.
- VPN on, proxy on - all apps work through VPN.


Using the new Netgear card, however, I get the following behavior:

- VPN off, proxy off - IE6 doesn't work, other apps work
through my network
- VPN off, proxy on - IE6 doesn't work, other apps work
through my network
- VPN on, proxy off - all apps work through VPN.
- VPN on, proxy on - all apps work through VPN.


With my old Netgear card, the behavior was identical (and as stated
for the internal NIC above) regardless of which NIC I used. All I did
was replace a broken PCMCIA card with a new working one and suddenly
IE6 is behaving differently.

When using the Netgear card with the VPN disabled, IE6 refuses to do
anything but tell me "can't display page - can't find server or DNS
error". It won't work even if I type the server's IP address
directly. With or without leading "http://", the IP address gets the
same nonsense "can't find" error as the URL.

I can't find any system or IE6 settings that are different between the
connection using the internal NIC that works properly and the one
using the Netgear card which doesn't. Both NICs are configured
through DHCP and the configurations are correct. The VPN and browser
proxy settings work as expected using the 11b NIC, but appear to make
no difference using the Netgear card - to use IE6 with the Netgear
card the VPN has to be active and I can't figure out why.

I have tried uninstalling/reinstalling the card drivers, flushing the
DNS cache, flushing the browser cache ... nothing has worked. AFAICT,
all the IE6 settings are identical regardless of the underlying
connection.

I am absolutely baffled.
George
--
for email reply remove "/" from address