@anyone,

I spent 2 1/2 hours with Verizon technitions try to figure out a connection
problem with the Westell 6100 modem and they finally concluded that
my ethernet card was not working. We tried to enter the modem's firmware
via Internet Explorer and the message 'Explorer could not find this site'
keep poping up no matter what we tried. We went to START->RUN->
typed 'CMD' -> entered 'ipconfig /all' and the Ethernet card had no
address, the modem's address was very wrong ( 67.168.17.18 ) and
'ipconfig /release' displayed DHCP instead of PPoE? They reasoned that
the ethernet card was bad beacuse it's not passing the proper address.
My question, is there a general diagnostic software tool to tell me the
state of the ethernet card. BTW, the ethernet was working and suddenly
there was no connection

-BP

Hi BP,

Your problem is probably WinBlows related
Do you have a Linux "live" CD
Like Knoppix or DSL (Damn Small Linux)
Let me know, and we'll take it from there

-kwag

Yep, nothing like a good live Linux or FreeBSD CD.
No need to worry because you don't have to install to your harddisk.
It runs straight from the CD-ROM and uses a Ramdisk with your RAM memory.
They come with excellent tools that will aid you to trace your problem.
If you prefer BSD to Linux you can try FreeSBIE.
That is a live FreeBSD "distribution" and a very good one BTW.
Cheers

__________________
Rui

Thanks Kwag and Rui,

Just downloaded dsl-0.9.3.iso (feb 2005)
Using ImgBurn, I made a copy to CD.
The computer that has this problem runs W2K Pro.
From what I read about DSL, it loads in ram space as
an independent OS and would not disturb any data on
the hard drive. I don't want to damage any data there.

I'll wait for your instructions:

-BP

Boot it up BP
As it says, it loads in RAM, and doesn't touch your HDD.
After you boot, open a terminal window and type "ifconfig"
If you have it connected to your LAN, you should see an IP address, something like this: The most important line is inet addr:10.0.0.10 Bcast:10.0.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
In my case, my IP is 10.0.0.10

-kwag

@kwag,

Kwag wrote:
Are you sure that's 'ifconfig' instead of 'ipconfig'.

-BP

Positive. It's ifconfig and not ipconfig.

__________________
Rui

@kawg and Rui,

I have both FreeSBIE (600mb) and DSL (50mb) and I can't get
to terminal with DSL or to desktop with FreeSBIE. FreeSBIE complains
about my diskette drive being bad. I checked it in Windows and every-
thing fine. DSL does get to desktop and I right click to display it's menu,
but there is no option to get to terminal. What can I do next.

-BP

Hit "CTRL+ALT+F2"
See if you get a text terminal

-kwag

@kwag,

I tried a brand new ethernet card with drivers and the problem still
exists. I also, tried "ALT+CTRL+F2" with DSL at the desktop and
nothing happened. My next step is to restore the backup of the hard
drive from Norton's Ghost and see if this solves the problem. I'm begin-
ning to believe trojan worms disabled the firewall (Kerio) and anti-
virus program (AVG) and left this computer defenseless. The address
to enter the DSL modem still doesn't work. I'm trying a program
"Wntipcfg.exe" to tell me if the ethernet card is reading the modem
address correctly. I'll let you know how it all turns out

Here's the link for "Wntipcfg.exe":

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000...wntipcfg-o.asp

-BP

@Kwag and Rui,

It seems that both the Ethernet card and Trojan worms were the
problem The install of a new etherner card and norton's Ghost
restore of the HD solved this problem quickly. Thanks for advice
and utulity programs. I'm still trying to get DSL to terminal mode.

-BP