Windows 7 can't connect to the internet

So I picked up this junker to clean up some viruses, but besides a massive pile of malware, the damn thing won't connect to the internet. Like, Windows says it's totally connected, no errors popping up, and the Sent/Received stats are climbing like everything is fine. But my antivirus can't hit the server to update, Windows update is dead too, even browsers aren't loading anything... Tried both Ethernet and Wi-Fi, but nothing works.

As for the viruses, I managed to knock those out using CCleaner on a bootable USB—I just update it on another machine first. Now I'm just stuck with this weird connection issue...

The thing is, I've still got a few sketchy processes hanging out in Task Manager that look super suspicious because they don't show a developer and I can't kill them. Specifically csrss.exe, winlogon.exe, and atiedxx.exe. I know the first two are standard Windows stuff and the third one is usually graphics related, but on this specific rig, there's zero data listed for any of them...

Try downloading AdwCleaner and running a scan.
If you still can't connect after that, I would suggest deleting your network drivers, running CCleaner to clear out any leftover junk and registry entries, and then performing a clean reinstall of those same drivers...

I’d suggest grabbing AdwCleaner along with Malwarebytes and TDSSKiller—run a scan with all three and see what they turn up.

Check your settings to make sure there isn't some random proxy configured for your connection.
It happens more often than you'd think—everything looks perfectly connected on your end, but you're still staring at a dead end when you try to actually get online.