DNS/internet help!

[SilentDeath]

Every 5 minutes, infact almost every time I visit a site that Im not currently visiting, I get server not found messages. Reloading doesnt usually help, so Ive got a habit of blaming the dns service in windows, and quite often just restart it and then it works most of the time. I do understand the service has a 30? second delay or something but waiting doesnt usually help.
everything else seems to work fine though.


My dns server (in network settings) is the ip address for my router. Other 3 people on the network dont seem to have this problem (vista 64 and 2k machines, one of which almost identical pc including motherboard/built in NIC). For me, it happens on both 2k and vista 64bit, although on vista it is FAR more common than I remember 2k having this issue.


So, is my pc part of some huge spam botnet? or is something else more likely...?

[peterb]

DNS responses should be pretty quick (what is this 30 second delay?)

It might be worth re-installing the TCP/IP stack in the Windows machine - although the fact that it affects both OS's (I assume you are dual booting?) would preclude that, and also spyware - unless yopu wee unlucky enough to have both OSs infected.

So that comes down to a possible hardware problem.

However, before doing that, try manually settingthe DNS address on the affected machine to rthe DNS server that your router points to. At the moment your router is acting as a DNS relay, so try cutting out the middleman. You could also try using openDNS (although in my experience it wasn't any faster than my ISP's DNS service, and was less reliable - I had more server not founds with it - but useful for testing)

[scruffy]

Who is your ISP?

Try changing your DHCP details for the DNS servers in your router to OpenDNS's:

208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

I had loads of problem with VM's crappy response times and DDos attacked boxes, and was getting exactly what you described - changed to OpenDNS and it's all good now.

hth.

[adam_weisshaupt]

Do you manually configure your IP address or do you have it assigned automatically upon reboot by your router via DHCP? If you are getting your IP assigned by your router then it should also set your DNS servers correctly. If you have assigned a static IP then set the DNS servers to the ones provided by your ISP [the ones your router has listed in its WAN configuration].