Hi,
I would first verify if you have IP connectivity. You can do this from the command prompt on most flavors of windows. Ping will end up being most helpful for diagnosing the problems you are having. Also, you didn't mention if you were rebooting the cable modem when you switch from the pc to the router, a lot of ISPs require this since they will only allow one device at a time. Depending on which sites appear to be working you might just be looking at cached versions of those sites. Another question, do you have firewall software running on your pc like Zone Alarm?
Reboot everything first.
Start-->Run-->cmd and click "Ok"
Do you have an IP?
Run command: ipconfig
Should output something like:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.110
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
These are hypothetical ip settings...the numbers might be different but take a look at what the gateway is and see if you can ping it.
Use command prompt for IP connectivity:
ping your gateway...good entry to test IP:
C:\>ping 192.168.1.1
Pinging 192.168.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=150
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=150
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=150
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=150
if that works...
ping by name to see if
a. you are getting ip connectivity to the outside
b. you are getting name resolution (or dns as seen in this thread)
ping google.com
...if the requests work you will get replies in times of ms:
Pinging google.com [216.239.37.99] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 216.239.37.99: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=239
Reply from 216.239.37.99: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=239
Reply from 216.239.37.99: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=239
Reply from 216.239.37.99: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=239
Ping statistics for 216.239.37.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 14ms, Maximum = 16ms, Average = 15ms
IF you get messages back "request timed out" you may not be getting name resolution try a ping to an external server by IP:
ping 216.239.37.99
(keep in mind that a lot of sites don't allow these kinds of packets so make sure that the destination you want to ping accepts ping "icmp" packets, I happen to know Google does)
...if you get response back on the IP address but not by name then your problem is with DNS. From what I gather you are letting the router obtain IP information automatically and your hosts are obtaining IP automatically as well.