Network Challenge.

[tautologies]

Hi All.

I have the weirdest problem, and I cannot seem to figure it out so if anybody have any suggestions. Here goes:

Using WinXP Pro
The user logs on to a domain using DHCP, with preset DNS and gateway.
The machine picks up the ip correctly, the ipconfig /all or / renew works no problem.
The machine can ping ip addresses, it can nslookup web addresses, but it cannot ping web addresses...resulting in no internet connection or email (since it seems to not translate web addresses correctly).
I have setup portfast on the connection to bypass any lagtime on the switch. The weird part is actually that this does not happen all the time, only every now and then, but always when the users first boots up the computer. It can take hours for the connection to come.

As long as it can translates web addresses shouldn't using nslookup, shouldn't it be able to go to web addresses and email?

Best regards and thank you for any suggestions
Aldo

[w1r3sp33d]

Try these two:

ping 198.6.1.1

ping www.yahoo.com

Much of the internet is now blocking icmp packets, these two should respond if you are not blocking it at your router / firewall / desktop firewall.

Let us know what happens.

[tautologies]

Try these two:

ping 198.6.1.1

ping www.yahoo.com

Much of the internet is now blocking icmp packets, these two should respond if you are not blocking it at your router / firewall / desktop firewall.

Let us know what happens.

The ping is not the problem, however whenever this happens, I can olny ping ip addresses, so: I can ping 198.133.219.25, but I cannot ping www.cisco.com
Okay, next thing is that then it probably does not translate properly, well I can do nslookup 'www.cisco.com' in 'cmd'....but still no luck on the webaddresses.

Thx for you feedback :-)
Aldo

[w1r3sp33d]

So I am guessing that:

198.6.1.1 responded to the pings?
www.yahoo.com did not respond to the pings?

When you ipconfig /all what dns servers are you using? I will check them out. Try to manually put in 198.6.1.1 and 198.6.1.3 in the DNS under your TCP/IP setup and try the ping to www.yahoo.com again.

[w1r3sp33d]

BTW your IM is disabled incase you didn't know.

[tautologies]

So I am guessing that:

198.6.1.1 responded to the pings?
www.yahoo.com did not respond to the pings?

When you ipconfig /all what dns servers are you using? I will check them out. Try to manually put in 198.6.1.1 and 198.6.1.3 in the DNS under your TCP/IP setup and try the ping to www.yahoo.com again.

Thank you so much for you time here.

The ping is not the problem here. Ofcourse the problem, this is not my machine it is one of the users in the network. I am actually having problems re-creating the erros as it only occurs in the morning. The DNS servers are manually put as is the Gateway. I will ask the DNS admins to check out the DNS servers.
My only option now is there are 3 dns in the network information. The first is the domain server, which only works as a domain admin, the second and third is the generic / actual dns. My hypothesis is that the domain DNS takes too much time before it times out, and the webpage / mail / connection times out before the connections get to try the 2nd and 3rd DNS.

I think part of the problem might be connected to the fact that the domain server does not communicate well with DNS 2 and 3.

For the IM, I cant use it here anyways, so there is not use enabling it...still thank you for your time.

Best regards
Aldo

[w1r3sp33d]

It sounds like you probably have it right, is there any reason you need to use the DC as the primary DNS?

Do the secondary and tertiary know about everything within your Domain / AD? If so can you bump those up?

As a side note, any errors on the switchport?

Since it is around bootup I have to ask, have you run a spyware removal tool on the pc?

(finally I meant PM not IM, sorry about that.)

[tautologies]

It sounds like you probably have it right, is there any reason you need to use the DC as the primary DNS?

Do the secondary and tertiary know about everything within your Domain / AD? If so can you bump those up?

As a side note, any errors on the switchport?

Since it is around bootup I have to ask, have you run a spyware removal tool on the pc?

(finally I meant PM not IM, sorry about that.)

Hi again
The secondary does not seem to know much about the domain, however we are working on those issues. It doesn't mean that I cannot try to switch the order (I was planning to do that).
The switchport should be working properly, any tool we have tested to measure picking up and using the resources also works properly.'

I have not been able to run any spyware etc. tools on the machine. It user is one of those who really are clueless, but refuses to agree to suitable solutions. I know he has a lot of junk on the machine, it is weirdly partitioned and there is some "free" software on it.
If I had my way he would be off the domain and on his own entirely. Unfortunately that is not my call...yet.

Thx for your feedback.
Aldo

[w1r3sp33d]

It sounds like you are ready to learn from the master!

Time to attend the University of BOFH; http://bofh.ntk.net/Bastard.html (I hope you enjoy British IT humor)

You should get all your DNS servers synched up, but it sounds like visit to the bad pc with the factory recovery cd might be the best thing for everyone, well except the user.