Can't ping work station

Troubleshooting "ping" issues is relatively easy, you just need to follow through several steps without skipping.
But firstly, are those Servers you tried pinging from on the same IP subnet as your problematic Workstation?

In Windows 7 you need to configure the rules for the Firewall with Advanced Security.
From the Administrative task open "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security"
From the Inbound Rules ENABLE
"Networking - Echo Request (ICMPv4-in) (for IPv4, or enabled th eIPv6)
You can enable it by profile, like for Domain only, and leave the other profiles disabled so if it is a laptop it cannot be ping outside the LAN.
These settings can also be deployed in group policy in a Windows domain

Easy:

1) Go to Control Panel > All Control panel items > Network and Sharing center > Advanced sharing options
2) Turn on Network Discovery for your current profile (Domain, Public, or Home/Work)
3) Go back to Control Panel
4) Open Windows Firewall > Advanced settings > Inbound Rules
5) Enable all Core Networking rules, and enable all Network Discovery rules for the Domain Profile
5) Go to Outbound Rules and do the same as above.

Zupreme or anyone,
on your step number 4, when I click on advanced settings I get this error:

"There was an error opening the Windows firewall with advanced security snap-in. the Windows firewall with advanced security snap-in failed to load. restart the Windows firewall service on the computer that you are managing. Error code: 0x6D9."

Then when I go to services and start the Windows Firewall, it throws up an error and cannot start it.

Do you have the firewall on?
Also, do you have another firewall installed on the machine? like maybe a Security Suit? then you don't need to apply the rules to Windows Firewall, but to the firewall from the 3rd vendor

The Windows Firewall is off and there is not any other security at the work station level.

if you cannot ping the workstation, and the windows firewall is off, there is definitively something blocking the ping.
When you said there is no other security, do you mean there is no AV, no AV Suite, or no Other Firewall, or just nothing?
That could be a problem as well. If there is no security software, you could have malware on the machine.
Can you see the machine on the network? (windows shares)
Is it part of a domain?

There is AV. We have a network firewall.  This same problem was happening on my computer, also Windows 7, I fixed it following Zupreme's steps listed above and that solved the problem on my computer, meaning I was able to ping my computer from another computer. The problem I am having on the original computer is that I can't get into the advanced settings for the Windows firewall, it gives me the error that I mentioned above. I don't know how to get past that. I tried booting into safe mode and starting the Windows firewall service but I got the same error.

if the firewall is off, it would not be the firewall. However, since you are not able to turn the firewall on, I would suspect a third party firewall, or a malware.
Can you enable the Firewall from the Control Panel>System and Security?

Not sure jumping to Firewall troubleshooting would really be the first step to here.. but.. just to repeat myself
Are those Servers you tried pinging from on the same IP subnet as your problematic Workstation or not?

I would do these steps (in order of easiest to most involved)::

A)  Plug the workstation into a different port on the switch, retry pinging
B) Ensure that there is no 3rd party firewall installed, if there is, make sure nothing is blocked on the local LAN and it is "Trusted"
C) Since you cannot start the windows firewall, make sure that the right permissions are set:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943996  (Title is "....Vista" but applies to Windows 7 too)
D) Infections also are known to change security settings, and since this is a firewall I suspect that infection may be at play here since none of the other suggestions have panned out.
    1) Download, update and install MalwareBytes (free editon) http://www.malwarebytes.org/ and run a complete scan.
    2) Download, update and install Superantispyware (free editon)  http://www.superantispyware.com/ and run a complete scan.

Please open a command prompt (choose Run As Administrator) and run this command:  "sfc /scannow".  This will repair any errors in critical Windows files and services, including those related to networking.

Zupreme,
I ran the command you specified above, it completed without error.  However, I still get this error when I try to go to the Firewall Advanced Settings:

"There was an error opening the Windows  firewall with advanced security snap-in. the Windows firewall with  advanced security snap-in failed to load. restart the Windows firewall  service on the computer that you are managing. Error code: 0x6D9."

For checking the firewall:-
1. Check the status & startup mode of the Windows Firewall service.
2. To reset the firewall to its default settings, run "netsh firewall reset" from the command prompt.

Since this is corporate machine, do you have some sort of VPN "SecureClient" software running in the background? I know my laptop does, and it blocks ICMP echo requests.

if nothing above works then it could be a corrupt Winsock

to fix


1.Go to command prompt
netsh winsock reset catalog (resets winsock entries) netsh int ip reset reset.log hit (resets TCP/IP stack)
2. Reboot your PC

Balajitr,
That command does not work on a Windows 7 box.  There is not any VPN sw running on this box.

Prabhaheren,
I tried both of those commands, rebooted, no joy.

I've noticed the rear cooling fan will sometimes run at full speed for hours.  I'm wondering if there is some malware or hardware issue.  I'm going to reimage this thing on the 17th if no one has a better idea.