Networking Questions and Answers - Unable to Detect Server Internet Message

Bryan writes in with a networking question

Question: My computer crashed and it's not recognizing windows anymore, after restarting the system windows came up, but I’m having issues connecting to the internet, it's giving me alerts like, “unable to detect server".

Answer: You should begin by checking your IP settings. You need to make sure you have an IP address that is not all zeros or does not begin with 169.254.x.x. which is an APIPA address. If you have one of these for an IP address then your computer is not getting a valid IP address from its DHCP server. A DHCP server gives the computer an IP address so it can communicate on the internet and also on networks in a networked environment.

You can use the ipconfig command to check your IP address to see if that's the problem. If you don't have a valid IP address then you will need to look into your DSL/Cable router or modem to see if there is an issue assuming you are using broadband.

If you do have a valid IP address then there may be something blocking the connection such as a spyware infection. You can try to ping a website to check for connectivity. Many sites wont allow pings but Google does so if you type ping www.google.com from a command prompt then see if you get 4 replies or none. You can get to a command prompt from the run menu by typing cmd and clicking Ok.

If you can ping successfully then you may want to run some spyware scans on your computer to see if there is something blocking your connection. There are free programs such as Spybot and AdAware that work pretty well and also programs such as Spyware Doctor that do a good job too.

Finally you can try another web browser such as Firefox to see if you get better results.

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