Clevo p150hm - Problems with internet (please help!)

I live in apartments and share a connection with 6 people and decided to get my own connection with 2 megs only for me so I can skype and game in peace. So the tech came and installed my connection through my phone line that I have here in the apartment. He configured the router, made sure everything was working on my laptop and then he left. This all happened yesterday.

I used the internet for a while and everything was working fine but then I needed to go to work so I turned off my laptop and put it away. When I got back home I got out my laptop, fired it up, then plugged in the ethernet cord but this time I got the little horrible yellow symbol with the ! inside which says I don't have internet access. Here is a pic of what I saw...

http://i.imgur.com/k0Xx5.jpg

However, I noticed that besides the connection that he configured (Network 2 in the photo) there is another network on the list that says "Unidentified Network" which also has no internet access but I'm only connected to 1 network and I have the settings so that my laptop doesn't connect to the wireless connections for the apartments unless I manually connection. I tried to into network and sharing center to perhaps disable that connection or whatever but it wouldn't let me do that or maybe I didn't do it correctly.
( I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 by the way )

I tried to manually reset the router and do the normal troubleshooting steps but I got the same results. I logged into the router to see if the settings were ok and the diagnostics said that everything was ok but the DNS failed. I called the ISP to get some support and he had me do all sorts of troubleshooting for like 45 minutes but we couldn't get anywhere and he told me that it is probably a setting in Windows but I honestly have no idea what is causing this problem.

The reason I'm asking here is because 1) I feel like the people in this forum know what they're talking about most of the time and 2) Perhaps since you guys own a similar machine maybe you might have had the same problem before. Well, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Let me know if you know the solution to this problem. Thanks a lot in advance.

 

I would check your line in access and see if it's a setting within your computer or the router. It sounds to me like it's a router issue, but this will tell you for sure. Are you able to access internet with line in?

If you do not want to create a whole new 'Network', go to 'Change adapter Settings', then right clicking on your desired connection and click 'Disable' then 'Enable' again, as there may be some sort of glitch with reading it properly.

If the router is set up properly, you should be able to access that connection via the new network you've set up.

 

If it's saying that your DNS failed, check to see if you can ping external IP addresses. Open up the command prompt (Start > run > CMD) and do a "ping 8.8.8.8". If you can reach that, it means your internet is working fine but your DNS service has failed. You can use google public DNS to get around it if you go to Network and Sharing Center > Change Adapter Settings > right click your adapter > properties > IPV4 configuration > properties). Go to the bottom of this window and enter 8.8.8.8 as the preferred DNS and 8.8.4.4 as alternate.

If the above external pings don't work, double check that you are actually being assigned an IP from the router (use CMD again, but run "Ipconfig". It should list the IP addresses that are assigned. If it's a 169.254.x.x address, then you aren't getting an address from your router. That would indicate that it's a router problem.

 

Wow, after doing some research it turned out to be the weirdest thing that was giving me trouble. I read that if you have Adobe Photoshop or Dreamweaver CS3 there is a service that can cause trouble when you are trying to make a direct connection to your modem.

So if any of you happen to encounter this same error and have Adobe PS or DW CS3 give this a try...

1) Go to start and search for "msconfig"
2) When your in the program go to "Services" tab
3) There should be a service called "##Id_String1.6844F930 (then more numbers)" in the list
4) Simply disable it by unchecking the service.
5) Reboot

That should work for you if you had a problem similar to mine. I actually don't even understand how I have that service on my laptop because under manufacture it says "Apple Computer, INC." But I have absolutely NO apple software on my machine. Pretty strange, but this worked for me. I don't know if it's just a temporary fix or whatever but so far so good.

Thanks for the suggestions anyways guys. Peace!

-Ian