At our home, we have Cable internet. We have two computers: The primary gateway computer and a laptop. The primary computer connects to the internet, the laptop connects through the primary computer using a network.

It has worked before until one day, the laptop starts getting "Address Not Found" messages when trying to go to websites. After a reboot, the laptop's network says it cannot connect to the primary gateway. However, the primary gateway said the laptop's network was still connected.

We have tried everything we could think of: Reconfiguring the IP address, attempting to repair the connection, reinstalling the NICs, and nothing works. The laptop says it cannot reconfigure the IP address, nor repair the connection because it cannot fetch a new IP address. When the NICs were reinstalled, the connection still wasn't fixed, even after re-running the network configuration wizard.

The day before this problem occurred, my brother told me that the primary computer had said it was missing important system files of some sort.

Has the NIC in one of the computers gone bad, or are the missing files the key to the problem?

is a firewall stopping the connection?

Originally Posted by brain_damage

is a firewall stopping the connection?

Both the primary gateway and the laptop have firewalls, but neither of them have stopped the connection before.

The connection has been up for almost a year, and it suddenly stops about a week ago.

I can see if either firewall is causing problems and disable them.

have you updated any of the PC's ?

Both of the firewalls have been disabled, it still will not work.

Attempting to repair the connection from the laptop displays the message:

Windows could not finish repairing the problem because the following action cannot be completed:
Renewing your IP address

Attempting to repair the connection from the primary gateway displays the message:

Windows could not finish repairing the problem because the following action cannot be completed:
Clearing the ARP cache

The network for the laptop says it's sending bytes, but is not receiving them.
The network for the primary gateway says it's sending and receiving bytes, but nothing happens between them.

This is what is leading me to think there is a possible fault in one of the NICs.

try go start...Run ..cmd..at the prompt type ping 127.1.0.0 that'll see if your network cards working

From the primary gateway, the packets are sent through successfully.
From the laptop, the packets are also sent through successfully.

I am still having problems, even when going through and manually assigning an IP address and DNS server through both systems.

When I do that, both systems say they're connected, but the laptop still does not connect to the internet.