Why can't I connect to the internet anymore?

[jur]

I am having problems with my tcl machine, I can no longer connect to the internet. This problem is now ongoing for roughly a week, perhaps more. I can ping google (latency varies quite a bit, from say 40ms to several 100ms). But the web browser and appbrowser remain unconnected.

The only thing I have changed in recent times is my router, and for 2 months or more there was initially no problem. I haven't touched my setup since installing tcl 3.4.1. I do frequent updates of extensions though (every boot, in fact).

All my other PCs in the home still work just fine, just the tcl eee pc will not connect. The wlan seems completely out, won't even ping, and initially the wired connection still worked but while it can ping, any other connection is broken.

What can I do to troubleshoot?

Could something have become corrupted since the ibiblio trouble, say only partially updated or something?

[gerald_clark]

Check all machines in your home LAN, and make sure you have no duplicate IP addresses assigned.

[Rich]

Hi jur
I'll give it a shot. Plug the machine into a different port on the router (or hub) to
eliminate the possibility of a bad port. Disable the wireless on the machine in case
there's a conflict between the two adapters. If the old router is still functional swap
it back in to clear the new router as a suspect. Try a different cable between the
machine and the router. Boot base norestore and see if it pings properly, 40 to several
hundred milliseconds is way too slow, I could walk there faster. Change the machine's
ip address in case the router has it in for that address. Reset the router so that it's in a
known state and set it up again. Some of these sound pretty basic but I'm just covering
all of the bases. Try them one at a time, in whatever order is convenient, and be
observant of changes in behaviour.

[tinypoodle]

40 to several hundred milliseconds is way too slow, I could walk there faster.

I couldn't agree with that...
Times from another box on same LAN could be taken as a reference.

Reset the router so that it's in a known state and set it up again.

Before doing so, just deleting the ARP table from router might be worth a try.

[combo3]

Could something have become corrupted since the ibiblio trouble, say only partially updated or something?

It's unlikely unless you freshly loaded them during the last two weeks, because the wireless extensions are 8+ months old and the openssl extension hasn't changed since late November.

To check, I just upgraded my Eee PC 4G (ath5k) from TC 3.1 to TC 3.4.1 and ran extension updates -- both the wired and wireless connections are working flawlessly.

For comparison purposes, here are my ping rates using WPA on a router connected to broadband:

--- google.com ping statistics ---
69 packets transmitted, 69 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 49.109/55.394/88.370 ms

--- tinycorelinux.com ping statistics ---
68 packets transmitted, 68 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 104.782/110.800/134.424 ms

Perhaps start by pinging your router over a wired connection. If the round-trip time is < 1 ms you can rule out a faulty cable or LAN port. If it's much more than 1 ms, run another ping test with a different computer on the same cable. If that's < 1 ms, then the problem is with your Eee PC. If it's over 1 ms then the problem is either with the cable or router. To figure out which one, try a different cable, or the same cable on a different port.

As for troubleshooting the wireless, first try downloading the extensions on another computer and transfer them over via USB stick. If the trouble persists, it could be due to signal interference from a cordless phone (yours or a neighbor's) or another wireless router using the same frequency.

In any case, it would help if you post the error messages generated when you start your wireless connection.

[jur]

After some more messing about I restarted the router again, and this time wireless came up good. But it drops out again when I enable both eth0 and wlan0. I think this used to work at some point in the past; I am beginning to think the router is dodgy. The IP addresses are all different.

I very seldomly had to restart the old router. (The new one came included from a new ISP, who claimed it's better than the original Linksys I had in there. I think not.)

Thanks all for the suggestions.