Networking → [XP] Cannot get an IP

Today, all of the sudden, I lost connectivity.

System = Dell XPS410 running WinXP with OnBoard NIC

Things I've done
1. Disabled onboard adapter and reinstalled - No luck
2. Tried wireless USB adapter - saw access pt but not internet; no luck
3. Installed separate PCI NIC (disabled onboard NIC) - no luck.
4. Rebooted FIOS router with all of the above - No luck
5. Tried two different cable and two different ports from Router to PC - No Luck

I noticed that for some reason I cannot do a system restore from two days ago to see if that would make a difference.

I'm out of ideas on what may be wrong and how to fix. I would be appreciative of any advice you can offer.

Thank you

Try resetting the network stack: »support.microsoft.com/kb/299357

I tried that with no luck.

SysTray icon says I am connected to the LAN at 100 Mbps

IPconfig comes back with nothing at all

Pinging router is unreachable

I ran a diagnostic and it shows i have an invalid IP address Iactually I think i don;t even have one, but...) the entry in that diagnostic is "Unexpected error from iphlpapi: The pip is being closed" shows up in that log file. It also says "Could not locate the specified NIC from iphlpapi"

OK, i got something to work, but i'm bothered.

I was using automatic DHCP networking. I hardcoded a static IP and Static DNS servers. I can now connect to the internet.

Hence, it seems like the DHCP 'stuff' is broke. How can i fix this?

But...I cannot ping this laptop I am using to type this note from the 'malfunctioning' desktop. It times out.

Are other computers in your network able to get IP's from your DHCP server currently?

Yes. I can grab DHCP-provided IPs for another desktop, about 5 laptops, Xbox, etc. It's only the other single desktop experiencing a problem

what range of addresses is your DHCP server (router) set to lease, and what address did the desktop in question get when you attempted to use it via DHCP?

So far as I could tell, it didn't "get" IP via DHCP. That was/is the problem. I have the router configured to use .1 through 50. I manually assigned .44 to the corupted desktop.

Whe I say it couldn;t get an IP when using DHCP, ipconfig shoewed absolutely nothing. No IP, no DNS, no Gateways; Nothing in the report.

It sounds like the DHCP client process is not running on this desktop (for whatever reason). You might want to do a google search on how to identify and manually start the dhcp client process on that machine and walk through those instructions. I'd also suspect that something else may be related to this issue (another problem or some new h/w or s/w, etc.)

this is an educated possibility. start up services.msc from the "run" dialog and check to see if the "DHCP Client" service is started. if not, attempt to start it. if you get any error messages, this will be your starting point.

DHCP was not started. I cannot start it. I get an error message:
"Could not start the DHCP Client Service on local computer"

I tried thes sequence of activites here: "windowsxp.mvps.org/dhcp.htm", but that didn't fix the problem. The NETBT was missing (now replaced) and "NetBios over Tcpip" wasa missing when I ran devmgmt.msc" I'm getting in over my head on how to repair that missing 'thing'

next i would suggest going into your event viewer ("Eventvwr.msc" in the run dialog box) and check the system or application logs for errors associated with the failure of the DHCP service. for me, i find it's easiest to clear both logs (saving them at time of clearing if you're paranoid enough) and then attempting to start the service... this makes less clutter to sort through.

hopefully the event viewer gives more specific information about the source of this problem.