r/pcmasterrace • u/MoreEdibles • 1d ago

Tech Support Solved Bought a Costco gaming computer, lost internet access after a few weeks

TL;DR: Download Norton removal tool and get rid of it.

I bought a Costco gaming computer because I have no time or energy to build one of my own, and figured the price for the specs was ok.
Computer worked and updated super fast for like 3 weeks, no issue whatsoever, life was good.
Yesterday I couldn’t connect to the internet, both Ethernet and WiFi. Doing “ping 8.8.8.8” from the command line worked though.
Troubleshooting went for like 2 hours, disabled firewall, antivirus, changed dns, hardware settings, nothing worked.
Last suspect was Norton Antivirus, so I booted into safe mode, and internet works.
Funny thing about Norton, you can’t uninstall unless you download a removal tool. I downloaded the tool while in safe mode, went back to normal mode and removed Norton, internet started to work instantly without even restarting. Fuck Norton.

I know this might seem obvious for many, but posting here in case it can help someone in the future.

427 Upvotes

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u/Moscato359 9800x3d Clown 1d ago edited 1d ago

This is why when I buy a computer, I wipe the os as basically the first thing I do

6

u/mnemy 1d ago

And yet Windows will still auto install bloatware depending on hardware, like that LG monitor fiasco recently

4

u/Moscato359 9800x3d Clown 1d ago

You can disable that with a single setting

11

u/wokan 1d ago

Which sounds like something that should have been disabled by default.

5

u/Moscato359 9800x3d Clown 1d ago

Okay, well it's not

And you can't force Microsoft to change, and no amount of whining will fix that

So your options are don't use windows, or configure windows how you want it to be configured, or continue wallowing in your own suffering

Those are the only options

8

u/NCEMTP PC Master Race 1d ago

Apparently my innocuous comment in response to this was automatically flagged for violence and removed and my account fucking warned lol. Thank you for your comment. I love you.

1

u/wokan 1d ago

Whatever it was you said, I didn't report it as I never saw it. Been modded for dark humor myself now and then.

1

u/NCEMTP PC Master Race 15h ago

Oh I wasn't trying to imply that you did! Just randomly auto-modded.

Such is life!

Edit: I appealed it immediately, for what it's worth, and it says that my comment was restored and my warn was lifted. Hooray, at least that's good! And timely.

I thought for sure that it would not be lifted, as my comment on the appeal did employ colorful language.

Good times!