Dial up networking error 31: A device attached to the system is not functioning

[T.J. Thornbrook]

Dell Studio laptop
Vista Home Premium SP2, no recent service packs, no newly installed
software, no conflicts reported in Vista's device manager, external USB
modem works fine on two other laptops.

Attempting to use my dial-up account (that has been working fine for almost
two years), I'm receiving an error just after the 'Verifying Username and
Password..' message appears.

Error 31: A device attached to the system is not functioning

Entry in the event log:

Source: RasClient
The error code returned on failure is 31.

Searching around, I found/downloaded rarepair.exe, uninstalled the modem,
removed the dialup connection, ran rarepair (rebooted twice) but I still get
the error.

Ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Corday]

Do a modem check on THIS computer to see if it's handshaking properly. Also
reinstall Dial up Networking entries (create new one).
--
Fortune favors the bold.

[T.J. Thornbrook]

Corday,

Thank you for the reply. I've uninstalled/re-installed the modem drivers
completely (more than once), deleted/created a new dial up connection (more
than once). The log shows hand-shaking was successful, it's whatever
happens just after the userid/password is authenticated and control passes
to the next step.

What I've been able to find, the error is related to a corrupt RAS in Vista
and the ultimate "solution" is to completely re-install the operating
system. That "solution" smells like clearing the picnic table with a
bazooka. The entries I've found (using Bing..of course :) that the
rarepair.exe is supposed to fix RAS by un-installing/re-installing it, but I
still get error 31. I'm comfortable with editing the registry,
re-registering COM dlls, whatever it takes. I just want to avoid, if I can,
loosing anything by re-installing Vista (I might as well upgrade to Win7).

[Peter Foldes]

Error Code 31. Fix this and do not pay attention in the KB to as to why. Post back
with result

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270008

[T.J. Thornbrook]

There were 13 matching entries in the registry with the GUID, none of them
had both Upperfilters and Lowerfilters values to remove. I don't have
problems with the DVD, I've never installed/removed Adaptec Easy CD creator
and the KB is specific to Windows 2000 (OS in question is Vista). I decided
I didn't want to cause more problems and performed a System Restore from two
weeks ago, problem disappeared.

Thanks for the response.