Can't access websites, but I can use AIM/Vent/etc?

SniperGuy

So I just plugged my sister's computer in. That brings the total computers in my house, connected to the router, to 6. Mom's computer, dad's, sister 1, sister 2, mine, and mom's laptop. Before plugging in sister 1's computer, everything worked fine. Now, seemingly randomly, in order to access any web pages, I have to power cycle my WRT54g linksys router, unplugging it and plugging it back in. Very recently, I have to do this every FIVE MINIUTES. Obviously this is extremely frustrating.

The weird thing is, AIM, bitorrent, Ventrilo, etc all work fine. But not my ability to go to webpages. What the hell is causing this? The problem occurs on my dad's computer, and my own that I know of. My dad's, my mom's, and my sister 1's are all directly connected. The rest are wireless.

HELP

ihmmy

when we've had similar problems at our house, it's due to our ISP.. and was essentially resolved by rebooting the modem.

amateurhour

This was just brought up in another H/A topic.

I've had the same issues where internet is down but AIM still works.

Charter (my provider) said it was a DNS issue with the router. I've just had to either wait and reload, or repair the connection.

Raere

It does sound like a DNS problem. The chat clients probably connect to their services through IP addresses, but websites use DNS, unless you like typing out 64.233.187.99 when you want to go to Google. Try that, actually. When you can't connect to any websites, try some direct IP addresses to websites and see if that works. One of Yahoo's is 206.190.60.37, and the one above is one of Google's. If you can get to them via their IP's, then you can narrow down to problem to DNS.

SniperGuy

Ok, so the IP into google thing definitely worked.

Now, how do I fix the DNS?

El Roach0

You've gotta define first where the DNS problem exists.

setup a control with one computer connecting directly to the modem (bypassing the router entirely)

If this one computer can stay up and working properly for more than 5-10 minutes, it's a router problem. Inwhich case, I'd first try a firmware upgrade for it, then i'd try to figure out how to statically assign your ISP's DNS servers to the router.

If it doesn't work, you can tell the ISP to fuck off, and get their shit working properly.

DeShadowC

actually considering power cycling the router fixes the issue it'll be the router routing to the DNS servers. Just set a static DNS address into your computers instead of using your router to handle DNS requests as well.

SniperGuy

Well I set a static DNS (OpenDNS) on both my router and my computer, and I am still getting the problem. So that's sucky. Any other ideas? On occassion, accessing the router's 192.168.1.1 menu either doesn't work at all, or it just shows up with random code.

And yes, I already tried a factory reset of the router.

Lewisham

Spyware scan. Malware can fuck with that stuff.

SniperGuy

Well I know my own computer is clean, and I did a scan of my sister's computer (which is running vista) and cleaned out some stuff, but not TOO much. And could malware run through our network and screw with everything like that?

Lewisham

SniperGuy wrote: »

Well I know my own computer is clean, and I did a scan of my sister's computer (which is running vista) and cleaned out some stuff, but not TOO much. And could malware run through our network and screw with everything like that?

Yep. Malware loves to fuck with your network stack so it can do all sorts of wormy goodness.