Hi,

first posting here so apologies if i dont make sense/provide enough info. Will really appreciate any help anyone can provide.

Since a week or so ago, (can't remember installing anything specific), i have been having an intermittant problem whereby i am using IE6 very well, all working hunky dory, but then when I leave my PC, sometimes for 15 mins, sometimes a couple of hours, when i comeback ive lost ability to find all websites.

My msn works, but not my browser.....thought it might be related to DNS, but if i do a dns flush its still not solved. However, if I choose 'repair' in my TCP/IP settings, or reboot its the fine for a while. Thought this might be an issue with my wireless router but ive not changed any settings (have been working fine for 6 months previously)...

Have run spybot and ad-aware and have nothing that could seem to cause probs, also have run virus checkers etc...

OS = Win XP SP1
Browser = IE6 SP1
Dell laptop in docking station
BT Voyager wireless router
Linksys wireless adaptor using win xp wireless settings.
sygate firewall = when disabled still a problem


ARGH, please help, its driving me mad !!!

Cheers

Matt

Hi Matt- welcome to the site!


- Can you find websites by their IP address as opposed to URL? For instance (using Google as an example): if you enter http://64.233.167.99 into IE's address bar instead of http://www.google.com, can you reach the site?

- When IE craps out, can you still ping sites either by IP or URL? Again using Google, open a DOS box and try the following two commands:

ping 64.233.167.99
ping www.google.com

- Also ping the IP of your router.

- "Have run spybot and ad-aware and have nothing that could seem to cause probs..." Are you positive about that? I'm assuming the programs did find and fix some things, yes?

Hi,

Thanks for the response......

yes, spybot and adaware did find a couple of things, mostly cookies, i do tent to keep on top of that sort of stuff and run those programs fairly regularly.

in command, when I ping googles ip i get a response no problem. However, if i ping the domain name www.google.com i get the following "Ping request could not find host www.google.com. Please check the name and try a
gain."

Must admit, i forgot to try the ip in the browser but will remember next time it happens (again, its intermittant). I suspect using the IP will work as it seems to be something wrong with the DNS smewhere.

Oh, also pinging the router was fine, my connection to the router seems fine, as I said my msn messenger works even when the browser doesn't (presumably because messenger deals with IP's)....

Anywhoo, any ideas very gratefully recieved.....ready to throw my laptop accross the room (which thinking about it, might fix the problem....certainly plan B)...

Thanks again

Matt

Just happened again - only after 10 mins or so this time....

checked ip in browser and thats fine..........

hmmmmm..... argh

Given what you've told us, it really does sound like a DNS problem. Have you contacted your ISP to see if they know of any problems with their DNS servers? The problem might be on their end; can't hurt to check the possibility...

Yeah i thought that, but my other wireless device connected to the same router works fine so s'pose it cant be ISP related.....thought this one might stump people

anyway, i'll keep trying things, you never know the windows SP2 release might fix it........? ? ?

guess there can't be any rogue programmes doing bad stuff if spybot etc doesn't detect them ?

Cheers

Matt

Have a peek at
Tools > Internet Options > Connections tab
There should be nothing there. If so, click on "LAN Settings" and it should be set to "Automatically detect..."

I don't think this is related, but fwiw

Tools > Internet Options > Security > Internet > Custom Level

At the bottom of the "Miscellaneous" section there's a setting for "Userdata Persistence" which I have set to Enable.

It probably refers to cookies, but maybe...?

Oh, always worth deleting temp Internet files if you haven't done so in a while--they can cause a multitude of problems if allowed to build up.

Thanks Mike,

Yep, done all that....have actually spent the last two hours trying to 'repair' my pc after the rather cool windows XP restore function caused a few issues.....as a result have sort of messed around with network settings so will see if it makes any difference...........hmmmmm

keep you posted.....

Thanks

Matt

Unfortunately, that's definitely not true- there is no single utility which can reliably detect and remove all of the malware out there. At the very least, you should run Ad Aware in conjunction with SpyBot.