I figured out my problem. My laptop was prompting me to perform an update for a few days before it went haywire and I ignored it. For what ever reason, it did what I mentioned above until I updated it, at which point it returned to normal and everything works again.
I have a Dell Inspiron 15r 5537 laptop running windows 8.1 and just recently, my internet connection stopped working. On my laptop it shows that I have an internet connection, however, every program that requires internet access, will not work. I have tried a couple of things, including diagnostics, cleaning history, antivirus scans( I wasn't sure if it was a virus of some sort), to get my internet working again, but nothing works. One other thing, my antivirus program shows that every time I try to access the internet it says SmartARP attack. How can I fix this?
Internet connection issues