Wierd Internet Connection Issue

Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
249
Location
Glasgow
I have a mate who has an old windows 98se machine, and the ISP is orange. On a fresh install of windows 98, with the usb adsl modem drivers installed for the modem he can get a connection to the net ok and ping a few sites. However when he loads the browser, after getting google and later search results, he can go no further. The browser reports "webstie found, waiting for reply" but thats all that happens. The same occurs in firefox as well. He cant type urls into the browser and get any further either. Strangely when on google, a hard refresh still brings up the page. He had this exact problem prior to a clean install. He has used another pc with the modem and it worked. Does anyone know whats going on?
 
Have you hit windows update yet? You will need at least IE 6 on there.

Also - have you installed all the motherboard drivers, etc? Go to the manufacturer site. (Especially if you have a VIA chipset there)

Next - a USB ADSL modem on an old Win98 PC - are you possibly locking up the USB by overloading it? Try getting a powered USB hub.

Old machines from the previous century were not always good enough on the USB power. Especially VIA chipsets. :)


Best bet with a Win98 PC is to go buy a cheap Ethernet card and a router. The router will be more secure / reliable with the Internet connection. Also allow you to share it easily with more PCs. The Ethernet card for the Win98 PC will be less than a tenner, and garenteed to work.

Sometimes you just need to match the age of the tech to the machine. Ethernet was tried and trusted in the 90's, but USB was still new. ADSL Modems draw a lot of power, and can get too flaky. :)
 
Last edited:
Cheers for the reply.

The same modem had worked previously on this machine. Its the only USB device. My initial thoughts were issues relating to usb and Win98, as u mention it was still a little new back then.

Turns out he tried another machine (XP) and its the same issue so seems its an ISP thing. Will have to clarify his statement about the laptop he tried.

Why would IE6 or greater be needed when Firefox is on there? Also, does windows update still cater for 98 as microsoft dropped support for it?
 
IE6 will come with other networking updates that Firefox will use. That is the key problem with IE - it is part of the OS, not just a web browser. So updating it does more than improve the browser.

Windows update is still there. Will still update your Win98 PC. Just Microsoft stopped doing any _new_ updates a few years back. All the old updates will work as before. (And are just as important as before)

If you have not yet been to the update site with that box, send it off there soon as you have a net connection back.


Also very important to find any motherboard and USB updates for that machine.


As to your actual problem.... well, Orange are notoriously bad on the support. Got to be the worst call centre I have to deal with by a LONG way. (I am an IT Support Engineer who has to call most of these different ISPs... and the most painful times have been Orange)

I also assume you have check your ADSL filters are setup correctly? One per active phone line, etc.
 
TBH, all i did was reinstall windows and due to the box having no nic i didnt put it on my network and hence no updates. Will go visit the guy to finish it off once orange have been (un)helpful. One guy actually told him the problem was due to having more than one browser.

I appreciate the upgrade advice re IE but the standard version on the 98SE install should still get him online though. My bad thinking MS had completely stopped providing updates as that would be stupid. It was also my bad for just thinking the guy had a really bad install of 98 (files missing etc) and that a fresh install would solve it.

I just find it strange that it will display google and its search results, and ping sites but nothing more than that.

Cheers though MAllen, at least i have realised about win98SE update support.
 
I am not saying that it will definatly help - but that OS is now almost ten years old. And there have been many changes in that time.

Have you also updated Java for example?

As to Orange support complaining about two Browsers :rolleyes: yep... that sounds like their idiot "advice". i.e. say anything to blame the customer.


When the internet stops working - are the lights still on on the modem? I am still suspicious on this side. I'd be trying out powered USB Hub on this. (OR, of you can get that £8 NIC, or just a spare one to test with - see what happens on your network. If it works over a NIC, then you can point at USB)
 
Back
Top Bottom