I recently installed some third-party software that caused my internet to stop working entirely, both on Wi-Fi and Ethernet. I tried connecting at a friend's place, and although I accessed their Wi-Fi, my speed was significantly lower than their other devices (50 Mbps compared to 700 Mbps). At home, I can't connect at all, and no websites are loading. I attempted several fixes like running 'sc config dnscache start=auto' in the admin command line, but I keep getting 'Access is denied.' This leads me to believe that the DNS client service permissions are locked. I've also tried resetting Winsock, flushing DNS, performing a network reset, reinstalling the Realtek drivers, and tweaking some registry settings, but nothing has worked. My laptop is an HP Victus 15 running Windows 11 (24H2 build 26200.8037) with an AMD Ryzen 5 8645HS processor. Is there a way to resolve the service permissions without wiping my system? I really don't want to lose all my installed programs.
3 Answers
When you’re getting 'Access is denied,' make sure you’re running the Command Prompt as an administrator. Right-click on the Command Prompt and select 'Run as Administrator.' Also, if other devices can connect to the internet on your home network, it might just be this laptop's DNS settings causing the issue. If you’re able, physically check the network settings on the laptop to make sure everything looks good there!
That's frustrating! Have you checked that your network adapter is configured properly?
First off, can you tell us which specific software you installed that caused the issue? That's crucial to diagnosing the problem. Also, did you happen to check your host file? It’s possible that the software modified it. You can also run 'nslookup example.com' in the command prompt to see where your DNS queries are being pointed. If you manually set the DNS server to 8.8.8.8 (Google's DNS) and it works, that might be your answer. Good luck!
I had a similar issue before! Check that host file—it really can mess things up.
Yeah, changing the DNS like that is a good shout! It might help isolate the problem.
Have you tried a system restore? If that wasn’t enabled, I’m afraid it might complicate things. It’s worth mentioning that sometimes just restarting the DNS client service can help—open up the command prompt as admin and type 'net stop dnscache' followed by 'net start dnscache'. What do you think?
Unfortunately, system restore wasn’t enabled for me, so that option is out.
That’s a bummer! If only we could go back that way!
I did run it as admin, but still, no luck. My other devices work completely fine, so it's definitely something with my laptop.