DNS Problem

Clarifications

Firewall or maybe a privacy service or filter of some sort. McAfee has a privacy service that sometimes just turns on and messes with ya.

Check the Hosts file: "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC" The host file should only contain "127.0.0.1 localhost" (In most cases) Sometimes viruses and spyware put IP's in there directing to false sites.

Possible MTU settings in registry. Check this article for help here. There is a link to a tool that enables you to easily check the MTU setting: http://ask-leo.com/i_cant_access_some_websites_why.html

Hope this at least helps.

try this

https://www.opendns.com/ it really works wonders for my customers with dns issues

his traffic isn't being redirected.

Just remove TCP/IP, restart, then add the service again. That should dump ALL your TCP/IP settings.

It could still be the router. Wait the other computers leases expire, and see if they can connect. Or have then do an ipconfig /renew and make sure they are all still working.

The computer gets its DNS info half way through the lease (at least in an enterprise environment)

I don't think its been hijacked, but its worth a try I suppose. I'll try it out when I get back to my computer.

Sorry if I came off as 'edgy', wasn't intentional. Anyway, nslookup says:

*** Can't find name for address 192.168.11.1:No response from server
*** Can't find name for address 192.168.11.20:No response from server
*** Can't find name for address 192.168.11.1:No response from server
*** Can't find name for address 192.168.11.20:No response from server
*** Default servers are not available
Default Server: Unknown
Address: 192.168.11.1

I can access 69.147.114.210 (but not yahoo.com obviously).

I have tried resetting/reinstalling TCP/IP, but I might as well try again

I can also see the other computers on my network in the ip scanner

when I ask which wireless utility are you using to configure a connection to the router.

Windows XP has a wireless utility built in AND most comps like Dell have their own built in wireless utility if they have a built in wireless NIC [or the mfg of the wirless NICs utility]

If you configure the built in wireless utility with all the proper parameters and the wireless connection is handled by Windows Wireless utility, then often there's no connectivity and one thinks they've done everything properly. This can drive you nuts trying to figure out why there's no connectivity. [be there done that ].

it never wants to play nice with others. It's like having a sister who always has to have her own room and her new purse to go with her new shoes.

Is this the only Vista machine on your network?

If so try a different router.
to test this, plug in the Vista box directly into the WAN. (the modem)

Vista doesn't like a LOT of routers. they just aren't compatible.

If you really want to disable ipv6...

Please note that this will disable IPv6 connectivity, as well as the Windows Firewall security, and is not recommended unless you are experiencing these issues. This will also invalidate any network related bug reports you file against Windows Vista?.

Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
Under ?Network and Internet?, click on ?View network status and tasks?.
In the left hand pane, click on ?Open connections?.
Right click on your network connection (for example: Wireless Network Connection), and then click ?Configure?.
If asked for permission to open Network Connections, click on Allow.
Highlight the following items and press the ?Uninstall? button:
Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper I/O Driver
Link-Layer Topology Discovery Responder
Uncheck ?Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6)?
Uncheck "QoS Packet Scheduler"
Next, click on the ?Configure? button under the name of your network adapter.
Click on the Power Management tab.
Disableall power management items listed on the Power Management tab.
Press OK.
To stop Windows Vista? from flooding your network with traffic:

Press WinKey+R.
Type ?services.msc? (without the quotes)
Double click on each one of the following services and change its startup type to ?Disabled?.
Base Filtering Engine
IKE and AuthIP Keying Modules
IP Helper Service
IPSec
Windows Firewall
Close the Services window and restart Windows.

I don't know what kind of router you have, i went through the posts and could find it, but if your router's DHCP settings says that the station's DNS server is the router, the router needs to have DNS forwarding capabilities. Not a lot of Cable Modem routers have that capability. I think you should see why your router is saying itself as the DNS server instead of just forwarding the DNS server addresses it has.

Give that a try.

TCB

@ TheVirtualOne:
I'm not running Vista. I'm sorry, and appreciate your help, but please could you read the first post? "I am running Windows XP Home (SP2)". I honestly don't know why TCP/IP v6 is installed. I have tried disabling it/uninstalling it, but it didn't seem to affect my ability to use DNS. I'll try again though and see if all that crazy hex goes away in ipconfig, or if its attributable to something else.

EDIT: I unintalled TCP/IP v6 and the Hex has gone from ipconfig, but the DNS problem persists. I think TCP/IP v6 may have been installed along with IE7 (not that I use IE, but I thought I might as well upgrade. I'm a firefox man)

@ tai_chi_bear
The router isn't one with a built in cable modem, thats separate and connected by ethernet, and it does have DNS forwarding capabilities. It is a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54. It's definitely not that that's the problem though, as everyone else who's connected to it can use DNS fine, and mine could 'til last week.

I am a computer science student, so I do know what to look for to a certain extent, and know what the TCP/IP settings should be. The IP address is set up manually in both the router (the router using the mac address of the adapter to identify it and give it the assigned IP) and on my computer (have tried it without the manual setup on the router though. Still connected fine, but with the same problem). Subnet mask and default gateway are set exactly as they are on the router. DNS server has been set to that of the router (using the routers DNS forwarding), but have also tried using the ISPs DNSs manually, and have tried OpenDNS.

It definitely isn't a hardware issue, as it works fine in Linux, and I am 'connected', I just can't get DNS.

I'm not using IE as my browser (I use firefox, but it doesn't matter what I try, IE, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, E-mail (using outlook and a small system tray notifier called POPTray), Joost; nothing that uses DNS works, which says to me that theres something wrong thats more than a config error like that, especially as I have verified my DNS server addresses several times.

*** Can't find name for address 192.168.11.1:No response from server
*** Can't find name for address 192.168.11.20:No response from server
*** Can't find name for address 192.168.11.1:No response from server
*** Can't find name for address 192.168.11.20:No response from server
*** Default servers are not available
Default Server: Unknown
Address: 192.168.11.1

The above messages tell me that it is trying to communicate with a DNS server and it is not getting a response. By the response, it's looking for a reverse lookup (because it says it cannot find a name instead of an address). Was a reverse lookup what you where trying to get?

Can you try a nslookup on www.google.com and show us the results?

You are correct that if the Linux OS works, its not the router. But I do believe you should concentrate on getting rid of the IPv6 configuration. Being a more recent protocol, the PC might be trying to use it as the default communication protocol. The reason i say this is because, i think (really not sure here) that IPv6 security measure might be trying to do a reverse lookup on the DNS address in order to confirm the machine is who it says it is. And if you do not have an entry in the DNS for the DNS server(a NS record) then it does not consider it to be a valid DNS server.

TCB

sorry about the vista thing... again.

what is at 192.168.11.20?

if you were to manually configure your dns to match your routers settings
62.31.64.39 62.32.112.39

what happens?

This is what you say your problem is:

"I am unable to view websites, sign into MSN messenger, update anti-virus, check email etc. but can sign into Skype, Xfire etc. Also, I can view web pages by typing their IP into the firefox address bar, and can ping the IPs, but cannot ping the web address (ie i can ping 66.249.93.147 but cannot ping www.google.com). I am also able to access the routers config page (by typing 192.168.11.1)."

if you can't get a web page, any web page, that is NOT on the LAN, to load up in a browser, and you know your TCP/IP addressing is correct AND you know your perimeter router is configured properly, typically that's a DNS problem. The typical DNS problem is that your not using your ISPs DNS servers. Either your router isn't providing the correct DNS servers to clients via DHCP or if statically assigned, the wrong DNS server address are being use.

you will still ping because you have connectivity via your perimeter router [correct default gateway], but you will not be able to view web pages because the DNS servers your listing can't either resolve the query or forward queries to other internet DNS servers to answer.

So who's DNS servers are you using?

If they are your ISPs I'd get on the horn and see if the addresses are right.

IF they are correct, then this is just a futile effort. As you know, it's not rocket science on configuring a computer to access the internet through a router. It should work if properly configured. If it doesn't work and it's properly configured I'd take the whole thing over to the window and pitch it:)

The symptoms that you've originally described sound like your WINSOCK is hosed; I've seen nearly identical symptoms as a result of hosed WINSOCK and the following procedure fixed it. I've seen references in this thread to "re-installing TCP/IP" but depending on your method, that may not be thorough enough. Through all the posts, I haven't seen this suggested nor tried ...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811259

I like the manual method at the bottom of the article where you DELETE your HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/Winsock and Winsock2 keys. Reboot. Go into network properties / Local Area Connection Properties / Add... / Protocol / Have Disk... / type in c:\windows\inf (or c:\winnt\inf) / OK / Select "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" / OK / Close / Reboot one more time.