Question

Can connect to internet at work, but not at home

Asked by: jlavetan

We have a user using a laptop at work (using a AD domain) and he has no problems connecting to the internet.

When he takes his laptop home, he is unable to connect to the internet (via wireless and cable modem).

His IP settings on his wired and wireless connection are set to DHCP.

If he connects to the company VPN, he can get internet access at home.

When he does a nslookup at home, his laptop is trying to connect to the work internal DNS servers.  

I've been beating my head against the wall with this one... any ideas?

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2008-01-16 at 06:52:20ID23087067
Topics

DSL Lines / Cable Internet

,

Windows XP Operating System

Participating Experts
5
Points
250
Comments
12

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. VPN Will Work With Wired But Not Wireless
    I have a consultant that connects too his main office via Cisco VPN Client from his home, he has a problem connecting to the VPN if he uses his wireless adapter, his wired adaptor works ok but not his wireless. Now we have not tried this from another wireless connection just ...
  2. Wireless and wired networks - help!
    We have an existing wired office network with around 20 PCs, some assigned IP addresses dynamically, some static. We have an ADSL router for internet access. I've just bought a wireless laptop and a wireless ADSL router to go with it. While I'm testing the router, we're reta...
  3. VPN with hard wire works... VPN with wireless does not
    Hi Experts! I just took a new position at work supporting our VPN client. Since I started 3 weeks ago, I have received multiple (more than 10) calls from people who are using VPN to connect to the corporate network but do not have access network resources. To give you the low...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: LotokPosted on 2008-01-16 at 06:57:30ID: 20672375

Check that the user can ping his router at home.
I would get the user to run a cat5 cable to the router and be sure its working before attempting wireless.

make sure also that in the network settings

control panel -> network connections --> connection name --> (right click) properties -->TCP/IP -->properties

both general and alternate config should be set to obtain IP address automatically.

 

by: JoeZ430Posted on 2008-01-16 at 07:00:26ID: 20672393

Have him go into his network connections and right click the connection and select repair.

 

by: snagsy1980Posted on 2008-01-16 at 07:01:17ID: 20672401

go to his wireless and nic properties (network connections), click on tcp/ip then properties, make sure "obtain ip address" and "obtain dns server are set to automatically. then internet explorer, tools, connections, lan setting and make sure the "automatically detect settings" is checked and no proxy server is configured

 

by: workgaPosted on 2008-01-16 at 07:17:38ID: 20672552

Do you have a proxy enabled?

 

by: LotokPosted on 2008-01-16 at 07:25:50ID: 20672630

A proxy enabled on the browser is actually a great suggestion to check.

if Internet Explorer goto: Tools --> Internet Options --> Connections (Tab) --> Lan Settings
make sure there isnt a proxy or autoconfig pac file set up.

for Firefox : Tools --> Options --> Advanced --> Network (Tab) --> settings

 

by: LotokPosted on 2008-01-18 at 13:13:54ID: 20694245

Did you get this working?

 

by: jlavetanPosted on 2008-01-23 at 07:18:09ID: 20723922

It seems to be an intermittent problem, he says sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Other computers hooked directly and wireless have no problems. His computer does not.
Attempted repair... no change.
No proxy is enabled and his tcp/ip settings are set to dhcp.

I had him do an ipconfig /all when it was working and noticed that a comcast dns server was added to his dns server suffix search list. I manually added it, but that did not fix the problem.

This definitely looks like some kind of dns issue.

 

by: snagsy1980Posted on 2008-01-23 at 07:24:13ID: 20723995

Check his dns settings, go to advanced tcp-ip settings, click the dns tab and physically add  your dns server address so it uses that one first,  clear dns cache  ipconfig /flushdns then re-connect

 

by: jlavetanPosted on 2008-01-23 at 07:29:11ID: 20724031

That's the problem... When he is not connected to our network he is still trying to use our internal DNS servers.  If he connects to our VPN he can see our internal dns servers and has no problems.

When he is at home, he should be connecting to his ISP and using their dns, but for some reason his laptop is trying to connect to our internal dns servers.

 

by: workgaPosted on 2008-01-23 at 07:38:13ID: 20724111

the run the flushdns command
ipconfig /flushdns

 

by: mtz1of4Posted on 2008-01-24 at 13:51:56ID: 20737882

jlavetan,

One workaround I found for this issue on my wife's work computer was to install a different Browser, but when I installed it, I did not Import any settings from IE and let it set up it's own default configuration which is "Direct connection to Internet", through my wireless router.
So, now if she doesn't need to access her VPN, she simply uses Firefox as a browser through my network.  I'm sure that might help.

 

by: jlavetanPosted on 2008-07-24 at 09:14:48ID: 22080781

This turned out to be a group policy issue. A GPO was setup to use a internal office dns server.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...