Weird connection problems

[Fr33m4n]

I am having some very weird problems when I try to get online. My setup is configured so that I have a broadband modem, a d-link router with lan cable to my machine. When I restart my machine I am unable to get online and when I start IE7 I get that default page that asks me if I want to diagnose my connection problems. So what I do is that I check the command prompt and type "ipconfig" and find that I have been assigned a correct IP address. Furthermore I find that I am able to ping my router and that I am able to ping my modem but I am unable to ping any websites at all. First thing I did after that is turn off my firewall "look'n'stop", and not surprisingly after turning it off I was able to get online. But this is the same firewall that I have configured and have working on two other systems in the house so I thought that something was just screwed up with it. So I then uninstalled it and re-installed it and configured it from the ground up so that it matched the settings of the two other machines that I have working. But to my surprise, after re-booting the problem was back. So then I ran the windows xp connection diagnosis utility that you can lunch from within ie7 and after it was done I could get online again. Which I thought was great because I believed things were fixed. I mean, I had not touched anything in the firewall and the diagnosis tool had somehow managed to get me online. BUT, again, after re-boot, the problems were back. I don't understand this problem at all. Any help would be greatly appriciated.

[Mr Snrub]

If you've already identified that the problem is caused by LooknStop, then any diagnosis being done from an application cannot give you more information - all it can do is to confirm that it's not able to establish a connection.

To be honest, if you're behind a NAT router then almost all of the features that most host firewalls provide are obsolete as you won't be seeing unsolicited traffic for it to filter, unless you put the machine into the DMZ of the router (bad, bad idea).

I can only suggest contacting the support people at http://www.looknstop.com/ and seeing what they recommend - they may have it as one of their commonly reported problems and can give you a quick solution.

[CoffeeFiend]

To be honest, if you're behind a NAT router then almost all of the features that most host firewalls provide are obsolete as you won't be seeing unsolicited traffic for it to filter, unless you put the machine into the DMZ of the router (bad, bad idea).

I completely agree there. I never really understood why most people even bother in the first place. It's not like it's really protecting you any better (no unsolicited traffic will make it past NAT, the router wouldn't even know where to send the packets), it just slows down your system for nothing and sometimes causes various issues like this one. Unless one likes to micro-manage their outbound packets perhaps (app xyz wants to check for an update, cancel or allow?) Too much of a pain to configure them anyways. I've been running firewall-free for MANY years with zero problems.