I hate it when some one fixes their computer and never reports the fix, so here is what worked for me.
First of all I live in a Best Western Hotel (not a motel) and they have EXCELLENT tech support. The BW tech support guy unblocked me from wherever he lives at the other end of the phone. Here's what happened and what he did.
The Problem
My computer's wireless and Ethernet adapters were physically blocked from the router. I had an Unknown network and got the dreaded 651 error and the message, “
Local area connection doesn't have a valid IP configuration.â€Â
How'd that happen?
I was using an add-on to Firefox to check my bookmarks for dead links. I can't remember which add-on it was because I reverted to an earlier version of my OS in an attempt to fix it. When it reverted it deleted the add-on. Today when I went to find it again, it is not available. Wonder why??? The kicker to all this is that I was watching my computer when the problem happened. It was like someone flipped a switch turning off my Ethernet adapter. I was on the wired connection (Ethernet) and switched to the wireless with no problems...until I tried to check my dead links again. Again the switch flipped off but for my Wireless adapter. RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! Then I was really dead in the water. The problem was that the Best Western firewall saw my computer checking my bookmarks. The computer checked more than 300 websites within 1 minute and the firewall thought my computer had a virus. Thinking it had a virus the firewall blocked the physical address of my Ethernet adapter (first) and my wireless adapter (second) from further connections.
The Fix
- Start by running cmd from the start menu
- Type “ipconfig /all†without the quotes
- Write down the physical address of which ever connection is/are not working. If you are hard wired to your router, then use the Ethernet adapter physical address. If you are running wireless, then use the Wireless LAN adapter. I had to do this for both.
- Go to your router's firewall and find the physical addresses of the connections.
- Find the physical address(s) of your blocked adapter(s) and unblock it.
Sorry I can't be more specific for everyone's router but that is the general idea. I'm using Win 7 but I don't think it makes any difference.
YOUR problem
If you did not do anything unnatural that a firewall might have picked up as a virus, then you might have an actual virus that your outbound firewall blocked.