Ebay links crazy network problem

[DanGent]

I have a problem. On a computer I have a problem where I can get onto ebay.com, .co.uk, .ie or etc. but when any link is clicked; computers.ebay.com or an item for sale, it gets a timed out/this document contains no data error. on pinging, the DNS gave back the correct IP address but there was no reply from the ping to computers.ebay.com or etc

tried everything i could think of over the course of 4 hours; taking off norton, disabling all firewalls, scanning for spyware. flushing the DNS cache, reenableing the DNS service. turned off all internet security settings. turned down the fragmentation threshold on the wireless card (MTU). plugged the PC in by cable to the BT homehub. disabled IPv6 on the wireless card, reenabled and enabled it in the browser. tried IE and firefox. tried another user profile

a laptop wired into the BT homehub router could browse any ebay page, so doesnt seem a router/BT problem.

only thing left to try (as i ran out of time), is to boot into knoppix with it wired up to the router and see if that works. i think thats the most important thing to try as it will tell me whether its a windows problem.

also, which confuses me further, i managed to get hold of a 3G dongle, and when the PC was accessing the internet thru this, it worked. so it was something to do with the PC connected into the router. i might have to get a 3G dongle for reasons like this....

The PC's IP was being assigned by DHCP, haven't tried setting up a static IP, though the BT homehubs IP by wasn't the usual 192.168.1.1 but something like 192.168.254.1, i think, or similar, maybe it ends in 100+. does that sound normal?

in the event viewer and netstat there wasnt anything suspect. using a proxy server could be an idea but i think booting into the knoppix live CD (which should automatically support the ethernet port) will tell me whether its a software problem or not. just dont really want to reinstall windows for something that looks like its not a big problem!

i tried loads of different websites as well but couldnt find any, do you lot know if ebay uses any specific web technologies that other sites dont?
gonna email BT and ebay and see if they can shed any light on this!

[Splash]

I assume based on the lengths you've already gone to that you have tried alternate DNS servers?

[DanGent]

No...that is a point!
i do remember using a web based one i think, is it openDNS where you can type the URL into a textbox and it gives you the IP? then i pasted this into IE to check.
none of the links on ebay worked, but the one i was trying specifically was computers.ebay.com
i found a few forums posts that had the IP address for this listed, but one of the first things i'll try when i get back on the computer next week is an alternate DNS server.
I'm fresh out of uni (or college, whatever you call it), so I know the theory of DNS (to an extent), but not the practical. as in, what DNS servers would i use? could i use? and how would i find them?

your help is seriously appreciated!!

[sadbuttrue]

You may be looking in the wrong direction.

There seems to be a JavaScript bug in the new eBay site. I often have pages that consume 100% CPU. Firefox notifies me and asks if I wish to stop the script. Unfortunately the eBay script is so bad, Firefox is never able stop it. The only option is to close Firefox from task manager.

[Splash]

Try OpenDNS' servers - 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

Worst case s cenario you can just switch back straight after. The advice about a different browser is probbaly worth trying too.

[DanGent]

I was thinking of something like that, but then, on that computer I can access all the ebay pages when using a 3G USB dongle (I'm so happy I found one of them I could use!).
In the options for IE and firefox I can disable all javascript and etc can't I?
would only give a barebones page but at least it would give something and pinpoint the problem!
a new version of the JRE wouldnt make any improvement for javascript would it?

[smargh]

eBay is one of the sites where the MTU setting on your PC and router needs to be correct. An incorrect value causes the symptoms you describe.

For regular BT-style UK ADSL, set the MTU for your network card to (I say this from memory) 1458. For Be* or O2 LLU, use 1500.

http://www.dslreports.com/drtcp

edit: I notice you mentioned MTU in your original post. Hmmm. Did you reboot & apply the MTU change to the right network interface? Is it just IE which does this, or Firefox too? I suppose it might be worth trying malwarebytes to see if it finds anything.

[DanGent]

you guys are heroes!! this forum is the best

I will try OpenDNS once I get on the computer again. I tried firefox straight away, normally I put firefox on peoples computers if IE is running fine anyway!

Is Fragmentation threshold on a wireless card the same as MTU? thinking about it.....its not is it! different layer in the OSI stack? frag thresh is physical layer, MTU is IP layer?
I've only ever changed the MTU size once, you can get a little bit of free software that alters it can't you? i'll have a read up on that. ah, DR TCP, thanks for the post Smargh.
I *think* the router (BT homehub) is setup OK as another laptop in the house could get on the ebay website fine. But I will look into it. This could well be an MTU problem!
I don't know how long ago the problem started, I will find out, but the computers about a year old and it sounds like a recent problem.

MalwareBytes is something I haven't heard of before but I will check it out. The computer had Norton on it, which I took off straight away and replaced with AVG free. Then I ran spybot and it found quite a few instances of spyware, removal of these didnt solve the problem.

Thanks again, any more ideas you guys have would be more appreciated than I can express on this post!