I'm Connected.... but I'm not!?!

Err something like that, well here's my problem (I am posting on my Macintosh that IS running so don't say anything stupid that I'm lying): My PC (emachine that runs windows xp home edition) recently had an internet break down. I believe it to be a virus but my scanners picked up almost nothing. What seems to be happening to me is that my computer is able to connect to my modem and establish a connection (56mbps with a good connection status) but my computer will not load internet explore, netscape, aim or anything internet related BESIDES teamspeak. For some odd reason teamspeak is the only internet related program on my PC that will work. The fact that teamspeak works means that my internet provider is fine, my router and wireless network is working fine and so something such as a virus must be causing it not to work. The past days everytime I run a virus scan I pick up only 2 viruses, 1 of which was an aim virus which caused my old aim to send a virus to everyone on my buddy list (i fixed it now but the virus program still remains in my system and my comp wont let me delete it), this virus never caused me not to be able to connect to aim so I don't believe this to be the source of the problem. Also one other virus was picked up called rofl.sys (located in my internet system of course) I can edit it and remove all the code but i am unable to delete it. If this is the cause of the problem I would like to know how to get rid of it (my virus protection fails to delete it everytime ) or any suggestions on how to get rid of it. Also if it's not rofl.sys that is causing my internet not to work, what is causing it and how do I fix it?


edit: also i am unable to simply end a virus using the task manager or anything like that because even though i am the admin, my comp somehow managed to disable the task manager via admin (if you know how to re-inable it please tell)

2nd edit: wow... anyways, i just redid a virus scan and everything comes up clean so I suppose rofl.sys cannot be ruining my internet (considering its finally deleted), so what could?

Attempt to ping your primary gateway. . .

Pull up your router status, and find the default gateway, ping that and tracert it.

If it is going through then the problem is most definitely local. Do you have any local software firewalls like zone alarm or Norton Internet Security ?

Check the file located in C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\

Labeled hosts, check this file, most users should have a single line saying 127.0.0.1 localhost anything else in there unless you are doing something of a local routing matter should be removed and the file should be made read only.

Boot into windows safe mode using F8 at startup, run your virus scan on the entire system there, also check for the known localtions of the suspected virus and delete those locations if they esist and permit.

Run disk clean up if you are able to and goto the advance options tab I think it is and delete all restore points except the current one, which will remove and cached viruses stored in a restore point.

Alright, I am The Phantoms brother so I can fill you all in on what is going on. We have run the computer in Safe Mode and the internet worked. Therefore we narrowed it down to a virus in System 32. The only problem is that our scanners can not find a virus anywhere. We have run our Symantec Anti-virus scan, an Ad-Ware scan, and a Search and Destroy Spybot scan. None can find any problems. Also our task manager has been disabled. For some reason this does not pop up as a virus. Another odd thing is that our MSGroup that controls our firewall settings has turned our firewall off. We can not turn it back on. We can not leave the group since we can not get online. We did ping 3+ websites. They all recieved information and sent back information. We did not recieve the information though. We ran all our scanners in Safe Mode as well, once again no avail. Everything checks out as clean. We have come down to where we now have to completely wipe the hard drive clean. We will reinstall everything from scratch, this should fix the problem. If it doesn't, well then the computer shall be thrown out of a window.

I had something like that happen to me, and since I couldn't check the internet I reformatted and reinstalled everything. It was a little painful, but nice to see things running faster again, like starting with a new computer. I was "lucky" enough to get that SpyFalcon virus/ad-ware/spy-ware thing right after doing that, but that's another story...

It sorta sounds like what I read about rofl.sys, and I think some people still had trouble with permissions after removing it and ended up resetting the computer to factory defaults. What I would usually do doesn't help here because Task Manager is where I look for suspicious files, then I google them to see what they are for.

Sorry I couldn't really help, anyway, I hope you can find a way to fix it.

We had the rofl.sys one but got that deleted. Here is the detailed explination on what is wrong. http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=53179
I hope that helps and that someone can figure it out. We would get pc cillin but its the same price as Factions so we are just gonna buy factions. But i think we have got it deleted, if not im gonna throw the comp out the window.

I suggest you make sure your XP install disc has service pack 2 included, otherwise you'll need to download XPSP2 on another computer and then burn a CD and install XPSP2 onto the computer you're reformatting before you connect to the internet. Otheriwise, once you connect to the internet to do windows update, or update your virus definitions, more viruses again. That happened to my friend last week when he had to reformat, he got viruses within 5 minutes of being on the internet while he was downloading updates :P

- It is possible for virus to corrupt your Anti-Virus program, if it's not updated frequently.

- Routers and cable modems over heat sometime, and they cause problems. Unplug their power, wait for 5 mins, then plug it back in again, and also restart your own computer.

- If you are sharing the internet with somebody else, make sure they're not using any file sharing programs. Because those programs opens up ports that allow hackers to come in. This happens to me a lot, as my roommate keep downloading movies and games.

That is no excuse for NOT locking down your own system.