So, My network SUCKS at home. I'm using Rogers Wireless as my ISP, and I have a connection of, 7 - 8 Mbps.

I have a Motorola Surfboard Modem, Conected into a Linksys WTR54G v.6 Router, and a Dlink DSS-8+ Switch plugged into the router.

Here are some problems I have faces, All Random and Non reproducable.

1. All computers on the network switch to "Local Only" Vista or "Limited or no connectivity" XP.
2. Some computers loose connection to the DNS I.E "The IpAddress cannot resolve the DNS server."
3. Some computers pulling weird 169.xxx.xxx.xxx Ip's - They should be 192.168.1.xxx

Steps I took to fix these which SOMETIMES work after a good dozen attempts,

Reset ipconfig - I.E ipconfig /release, ipconfig /renew/, ipconfig /flushdns
Reset Router Modem and Switch. - Unplug all for 30 seconds, Plug in modem till 4 leds are on, Plug in Router till leds come on, then plug in switch.

Again the fixes only work SOMEtimes.

My real question is, WHY would these be happening and how can I stop them and just have my network stay alive forever !

Thanks in advanced !

level42.

That message makes absolutely no sense DNS servers resolve a domain name to an IP address. Since an IP address is just a four-byte integer value, commonly represented as separate bytes for human readability, they can't really do any resolving by themselves...


That's the same as #1. 169.x.x.x IP addresses are what Windows uses when it doesn't have another IP address for whatever reason.


Aka releasing your IP address lease, requesting a new IP address, and then emptying the DNS resolution cache. I mention this explicitly because of what I will say next:

It sounds like the DHCP server in your router is playing silly buggers. That would explain the lack of IP addresses on client machines, and could also explain the lack of DNS resolution. You could also have a b0rked DNS server in the router which would be causing the DNS issues, but merely having a dead DHCP server would do the same occasionally. I suspect that this is why your reset router, modem & switch solution works:


By restarting the router you'll also be restarting its internal DHCP and DNS servers, which may kick them into doing something useful for a period of time.

How to fix it? Well, the best solution would be to sort out the DHCP/DNS servers in the router to stop them misbehaving. Upgrading the firmware of the router might solve that. As might using 3rd party firmware for the router, if any exists (though that option is generally excitingly warranty-voiding). Alternatively you could buy a new router, but that seems like overkill until you know for sure that something in the router is causing problems - I'm just guessing, here, really.

A less practical option, but one that should still work, is sodding the DHCP server entirely and assigning static IP addresses to every machine connected to the router. You'll have to assign (obviously different) IP addresses to every machine, plus the same subnet mask (probably either 255.255.255.0 or 255.255.0.0, but you'll be able to find out by checking what the router's handing out now), and also saying that the router is the default gateway (probably - again, check what's being assigned by the DHCP server now and just copy that, but set it up statically so Windows doesn't even have to talk to the DHCP server). Then set your ISP's DNS servers to be the DNS servers used by Windows. In theory their website will tell you what DNS servers to use. Alternatively you could use OpenDNS for your DNS resolution - the IP addresses of their servers are at the bottom of their website.

If none of that works, I really don't have a clue

Ok well after countless hours of fighting both with my ISP and my Router company ... I think I have my problem, SOME what figured out ...

My network is still dropping but not nearly as often ...

Thanks Lord d'Eath

UGH!!!! MY network is SOOO bad now ! ...

Can you please help me again?

My download speeds are awsome 500 - 900 KB/s ... and everything else is fine ........ Except for browsing the net ...

I have a feeling my ping times are VERY high, browsing the net takes AGES, some times 30 seconds to load google.ca.

Most of the time the page wont even download "I.E Page cannot be displayed" Its the same on all my computers and with any broswer ...

Any Ideas?

Can you please confirm whether your ping times are very high or not. Ping "64.233.187.99" (use "ping 64.233.187.99" in cmd.exe) and see what the results are. That IP address is one of the many that google.com resolves to so won't suffer from speed issues on their side - I get about 130-140ms pings to that, but it's on the other side of the Atlantic to me so it's to be expected.

It sounds to me more like you have DNS resolution issues. If you had high ping times you would also very likely have slow download/upload speeds (not the case with a satellite connection, but I'm assuming that isn't the case, even though you haven't explicitly mentioned your connection type). Try setting your DNS servers to that of OpenDNS as I mentioned above and see if that fixes things. Setting them to your ISP's DNS servers might also work, as the default is probably just your router which often causes trouble.

Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself, here?

Sorry, I keep trying everything you, linksys and my ISP provide me ... nothing really seems to be working however.

My Ping times are VERY low .... 40,39,39,58 ....

I spoke with Linksys yesterday and again they told me to lower my MTU settings from 1400 - 1100 ... I Had my networked configured with OpenDNS but then linksys had me reset and reconfigure my router, I'm going to restore the OpenDNS settings when I go home ....

I'm still not sure what the DNS does tho .... But I'll google that in a bit ...

P.S I have a Cable connection at 7 Mb/s

Ok, you have 4 different points of failure here:

1. Your PC's (unlikely, lots are failing).
2. Your Router.
3. Your Modem.
4. Your ISP's DNS servers.


Try plugging one computer directly into the cable modem and see if that works. Remember to refresh/renew the DNS information. Try going into cmd and typing 'nslookup' and then type in www.bbc.co.uk. see if that comes up with any results. BTW, those ping times are pretty high...

If it works it could be a problem with your router.

40-60ms pings are high? To where? A machine on your LAN? I get similar sort of results (37-40ms) to bbc.co.uk, and I imagine that the distance for my line to the BBC is much shorter (and probably higher bandwidth - LINX is pretty decent) than whatever mess North America has going on. He's in Canada, and I suggested pinging google.com, which is hardly next door...

17ms average here to bbc.co.uk.