Suddenly I became unable to receive anything at home over the net. In the past I've corrected this either with repowering or shutting down XP - home (as opposed to my typical hibernation). But not this time : ( I'm a heavy PC user and applications programmer, but a real IP and connectivity moron, so bear with me. And I know this is long, but I'm trying to get you everything relevant.
I have Time-Warner cable (a.k.a. Road Runner) configured in this order wall Cable Modem Linksys router (non wireless) PC with XP Sygate Personal Firewall and Windows (XP) firewall Internet Explorer 6
Vonage supplied the router. I use VOIP. This is the only thing that works! No web. No Messenger. No anything else that uses the Net.
I've tried overnight powerdowns, even plug away from wall; full XP shutdowns; clicking on "automatically detect settings" under LAN settings, and back off again; bypassed the router; while bypassing tried the other ethernet cable instead; disabled both firewalls.
WHAT I SUSPECT TELLS THE MOST:
Checking the Sygate traffic log, almost 100% of the trickle of traffic shows 192.168.15.100 (or .255). It SHOULD show things like the Google IP and everywhere else I try to browse. But there's not even an ATTEMPT to connect to Google shown. (And if some firewall rule was blocking, that should have shown on the log.)
The only remote host address among dozens of 192.168.15.xxx log entries is 10.8.0.1. However, sadly, I can't even backtrace that with Sygate Firewall, 'cuz I can't get to the Net :( :( (:
Watching the firewall's activity graph, while clicking "hide broadcast traffic," I see blips from my webmail checker - but only outgoing, and zero bytes incoming. And when Roadrunner support tried remote diagnosis, I could see both incoming AND outgoing blips.
ROADRUNNER support says I have a bad NIC card. Is this all I can try?! Sounds bogus to me. What about the blips on the Firewall graph?
Finally, if I uncheck "hide broadcast traffic" I can see continuous movement on the activity graph. Tiny, but something. This is like "noise" that just buzzes along, regardless of whether I have an application attempting traffic.
What can I try now?