trouble with internet connection

Since yesterday afternoon I've been having connection issues. I have a two computer network at home and my connection is via a Sprint broadband card plugged into a Kyocera router, which feeds both computers. Sometimes it won't connect at all or I can only receive mail via Outlook, no other web sites work. Other times I can connect but then only to certain sites, such as Yahoo mail, or Craig's list. When it does work, it loads without graphics and everything is just text on the screen. The annoying pop-ups are gone and so are all the ads. I tried uninstalling AVG but that didn't change anything. The error message I keep getting for sites is that it can't find the server. I'm using both IE and Mozilla and get the same errors. The other computer is running IE and having the same troubles. Sometimes the only thing that works is mail, using Outlook, no other web connections, including newsnet. I get the error that it can't find the server for newsnet also. At the moment, everything is working, but this happened earlier today and then everything quit again. When it does connect the speed is fine. I don't own a laptop so I can't know if it would be a problem with the Sprint card. I do have Network Magic and I've reset the connection several times and it says there is nothing wrong with the network or the internet connection. It resets the IP address and says the connection is fine, but it didn't work.

At the moment, everything is working and I did a speed test on Speakeasy and it's showing 750kbps which is average for my connection. Is it possible there is Internet server troubles for the last 20 hours or do I have some kind of trouble? Any thoughts appreciated,

Open a DOS box (command prompt window). Try

nslookup www.altavista.com

The returned result shows the results of a DNS lookup, which converts a symbolic address, into a numeric one (72.30.186.25). And the server that was consulted, to get the answer.

If there is a long delay, before the answer returns, it means one of the DNS servers in your list is not working. And as far as I know, Windows evaluates them in the same order all the time. So the duff one will be checked first every time. (Other OSes may be clever enough to consult the known working one first.)

My internet connection uses DHCP for both my router and DHCP from my computer to my router. In both cases, DHCP automatically asks or the DNS server addresses from the DHCP host. Two are provided as a rule, which is intended to give some redundancy against failures. And in some cases, one or both of the suggested DNS servers might not actually be working. (Although lately I cannot say I've had any problems, so they've gotten better at keeping them running.)

You can also assigned DNS addresses statically. My router has room for a couple entries in its WAN setup page. And in Windows, I suppose you could disable DHCP, and do some assignments yourself. The trick is, to know some DNS addresses at your ISP to use. (Mine used to serve a lot of users through some main DNS servers, but has now distributed things a lot more. You could do a reverse lookup on your current DNS addresses, to figure out whether there is a naming convention for them at your ISP, and then try some other similarly named nodes.)

Also note, that there was a recent change to DNS, in that during the last Windows Update, a change was pushed out to fix a DNS exploit. That would have happened on Patch Tuesday, which is the second Tuesday of every month.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...caused-hacking

Tried nslookup and got the following:
SERVER: unknown
Address: 192.168.0.1
Unknown can't find nslookup: non-existent domain. Since I was able to this right now, everything is working ok, but it quit for the 3 previous hours.

This is what mine returns. I used this command, to dump the DOS output into a text file. The ">" redirects STDOUT to a file. nslookup www.altavista.com >out.txt And this is the output.

Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.1.1

Name: avatw.search.yahoo2.akadns.net
Address: 72.30.186.25
Aliases: www.altavista.com

The reason the server is unknown, is because there is no reverse mapping for a private address (192.168.1.1). In other words, the computer asks the router. The router in turn, consults one of the two DNS servers it was passed, via DHCP, from the ISP. There is no symbolic equivalent to 192.168.1.1, which is why it has to remain "UnKnown".

But I can see the actual servers used, in my router setup page. The fact that I got a translation , means it worked, and one of my two DNS servers at the ISP, was working.

For people who have a static setup for their Windows computer, the server name could have been translated and named, because then the nslookup program would be dealing with a public DNS server directly.

If you're not getting the "72.30.186.25" part of the answer, then DNS is broken. You could talk to the staff at your ISP, for example, to seek a resolution. I've used workarounds in the past, to avoid phoning them Such as manually setting up DNS, when there is a problem. Now that there are so many more DNS servers at my ISP, this no longer seems to be an issue here.

Hi robodude,

Thanks for the replies but you're now talking over my head.
What does that mean the "DNS is broken"?

I also don't really know who my Internet Service Provider is?
I connect using a Sprint broadband card. Would Sprint be my ISP?

Sorry for the dumb questions!

DNS, Dynamic Name Server. DNS assigns the IP address of stuff conected to it.

You can be sure the Internet is not broken.

Your trouble is that the router you are using is having trouble, or your ISP is dropping the ball. Yes, Sprint would be your ISP (Internet Service Provider) IP is Internet Protocol, everything has an IP address. Your broadband card does not tolerate being the Internet connection point for a network, it only works for a single machine. I suppose in theory, it could be hosted by a router, then a network could be built around the router that uses the broadband card. I have to worry that the quality of service (the ability to send and receive packets of data) would be diminished in an architecture like this. I recently tried to network behind a machine with a broadband card used for Internet access, and it did not work. The host machine (the one with the broadband card in it) reported the second machine as a conflict with the IP address -- basically, it said two machines with the same address is not acceptable.