A strange one...

[andrew12]

I've been looking at a laptop which is experiencing a delay in picking up a dhcp address on boot up.

It is used for dial up and network access and due to a separate problem with dial up it was set to always release its network card ip address on shutdown (via a registry hack).

On start up the network logon screen comes up but login is not possible (no domain controller was found etc etc) if I skip past the logon and check winipcfg the laptop has picked up a self configured 169.254 address.

However if I leave the logon screen up for roughly 5 minutes it seems to pick up a dhcp address and logon becomes possible.

I have done the following:

Tried 3 different pcmcia network cards (in both slots).

Reinstalled TCP/IP.

Disabled an IR network card.

Checked what is running (via ctrl-alt-del) when the logon screen comes up - 2 programs were running but stopping them didn't make any difference.

Given the laptop a static dhcp reservation.

Removed dameware from the machine as this was reporting a 169.254 address via the sys tray icon even after a successful logon. I am not convinced I have completely removed this as after deleting the files from the sys folder and rebooting it reappeared in the startup tab of msconfig. I searched for registry entries and deleted one for dameware and this SEEMS to have done the trick.

All the above has made no difference. When I shut the machine down and restart it it is still taking up to 5 minutes to acquire an ip address. Needless to say I have tried it on several different network points.

I'm sorry this has turned into an essay but can anyone help?

 

[TekTippy4U]

Not really a networker, but i'll give it a go anyway;

Does your BIOS have an option for "network Boot"??
(set it or disable it)

check LAN card settings and NIC settings in BIOS.

In IE > tools > internet options > connections tab > LAN settings...Logon Script here ?

See this;

http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/nologon.htm#realmodenet

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs..All involved shall be spared the grief.

 

[mattjurado]

Question, has it always been this way, or did it just start? If it just started, what has changed?

Also, I would download and install Spybot, then update it, then scan and remove all spywares. Do the same with your virus scanner.

If everything is clean, and problem still exists, and no leads as to what has changed, you might try the scanreg /fix command and the scanreg /restore command from a dos prompt. This will try to repair the registry, and if unsuccessful, the second command will allow you to replace the registry with a prior copy.


Matt J.

Please always take the time to backup any and all data before performing any actions suggested for ANY problem, regardless of how minor a change it might seem. Also test the backup to make sure it is intact.

 

[micker377]

Try this Forum - Browser Issues for IT Professionals - They have experts in these subjects.

 

[andrew12]

Thanks for those suggestions chaps - I'll look into them all at work tomorrow after giving the senior manager (always the way) whose laptop it is the lowdown...