My internet seems to be slightly broken - help please!

[ThoseOfTheUnlight]

Hi there,

I seem to have a bit of a problem with my internet today.

Some sites work fine, such as this one, BBC, ntsc-uk, etc.

Some seem to not work, and my browser keeps timing out - like play-asia, lik-sang, stuff like that.

Any ideas what I could do? I take it its a problem on my end

[Tom Salter]

Tried pinging these sites? If it says "Cannot find host" then your DNS is fooked, and there's not much you can do unless you can find a public DNS server.

Try www.dnsstuff.com for dns diagnostics.

[ThoseOfTheUnlight]

Sorry for being stupid, but how exactly do I do that?

Any reason why my DNS would be buggered? Is this an ISP problem?

[Tom Salter]

Yeah, it's an ISP problem. DNS ****s up with NTL quite often here.

To ping sites, try this.

Click start->Run-> type in "cmd.exe" without quotes.

Then type:

ping <website>

For example:

ping www.ntsc-uk.com

and that should return a response. Try a website you can't get on, and if it says "Incorrect host" or "host unavailable" or some **** like that, it's DNS playing up. Could even try (in that command prompt) "ipconfig /flushdns" to reset your DNS cache.

[ThoseOfTheUnlight]

Those seem to be fine...

Indeed the sites I had problems with SEEM to be working again.... fingers crossed, I dont know what the hell is going on!

[ThoseOfTheUnlight]

And now it isnt working again

[ThoseOfTheUnlight]

I'm losing all the "packets" when pinging these sites as well...

[Tom Salter]

Your ISP's DNS servers are probably just playing up. If you really, really want access to sites post them here and I'll give you direct access by IP address.

[ThoseOfTheUnlight]

Im not really fussed immediately - but will this just get solved by itself by the ISP?

[Tom Salter]

Yeah, should do. Try resetting your router/cable modem though, just to make sure its nothing your end. Also try the status page for your ISP to see if there are difficulties.