It's a long shot....Internet Woes!

yeomansinc · 22 Apr 2008 at 00:07

It's a long shot....Internet Woes! (RESOLVED!)

Harro!

Having a bit of trouble with my girlfriends PC. The connection is Orange (unfortunately!) and it's recently been upgraded to 8Mb MAX or whatever it is, from 1 or 2Mb because the contract came to an end (all her Dads doing).

The Speedtouch 330 modem caused quite a bit of trouble with Vista 64Bit (out of no where!) so I ditched it, tried to sort out the problems but to no avail. Went out and bought a D-Link router, which connected to the internet fine but would only access Google?!

Anyhow, I took the PC home to mine, formatted, re-installed and brought it back....only to find it will still only access Google. You can search on Google fine, no problem, do it all day long, but if you wanted to click on a result...nothing.

BUT...It's not just Google it will load - O2, Orange, East mids Airport are just some that will work. Yell.com, eBay, OCUK, Facebook are examples that don't.

Considering the PC downloaded MSN messenger, windows updates and went on sites using my connection with no problems, I thought it couldn't be the PC. To definitely rule the PC out I took my XDA Mini S, connected to the router wirelessly and it was the same with that...only access some sites.

Orange Broadband tech support have been useless so far. I think they've passed it to BT to check the line which will take up to 48 hours (they'll also SMS me updates...got none so far!). I suppose what I'm asking is whether or not anyone knows specifically what the problem may be from the router to the WWW (any BT engineers around?). It worked fine with 1Mb, but since the new contract it's all gone **** up.

After 48hours though....new ISP time, so feel free to throw some ideas around.

Thanks in advance. No worries if you can't help, I just wanted to type about it really

yeomansinc · 22 Apr 2008 at 00:10

Oh just to add. Ping tests to Google, sometimes all 4 packets would come back with a ping of about 60 something, but other times might be 2 or 3.

tolien · 22 Apr 2008 at 00:29

What happens when a page doesn't load - any error messages or what?

It's extremely unlikely to have anything to do with BT - nothing would load if it was...

yeomansinc · 22 Apr 2008 at 00:48

tolien said:
What happens when a page doesn't load - any error messages or what?

It's extremely unlikely to have anything to do with BT - nothing would load if it was...

It just waits for the page to load, then eventually times out and fails to display (this page cannot be displayed). HMV for example, will load up the page title but will time out with the whole page.

Hyper · 22 Apr 2008 at 02:18

Sounds like a serious DNS issue to me.

Sin_Chase · 22 Apr 2008 at 15:24

Hyper said:
Sounds like a serious DNS issue to me.

Was my intial thought, but on a formatted PC the only thing left is the Routers entries, and if he bought a new router I would not expect old entries to still be present.

Try to access overclockers via IP - http://91.151.217.10/

yeomansinc · 22 Apr 2008 at 22:25

Sin_Chase said:
Was my intial thought, but on a formatted PC the only thing left is the Routers entries, and if he bought a new router I would not expect old entries to still be present.

Try to access overclockers via IP - http://91.151.217.10/

I shall have a go next time I'm round!

So far, Orange have not found any faults...nor have they text me any updates to do with the line. I've checked that I'm using the right DNS, and I also manually entered in the other DNS that can be used.

I did miss off the "@fs" at the end of the username, but after I added this in today...still the same. When I asked their technical support about the relevance of the @fs bit, they completely blanked me.

I'm reluctant to try the old modem, as this caused BSODs. Before the format, it did do exactly the same as the router anyhow..

Now I'm at mine, I've done a test via BT's site on whether my girlfriends number can receive broadband. Their tests show that the "line should be able to have an ADSL broadband service that provides a line rate up to 1Mbps" followed by "Our test also indicates that your line currently supports a potential ADSL Max broadband line rate of 3.5Mbps or greater." Compared to my number which states that it can support upto 2Mbps and between 6.5Mbps and 8Mbps. So in comparison, looks like the exchange is quite poor?

tolien · 22 Apr 2008 at 23:49

No, it looks like BT think that the line is possibly poor.

It's almost certainly not the line. Tried a different browser? What browser(s) have you tried?
What does start, run, cmd, nslookup [site that doesn't work] give you?

yeomansinc · 23 Apr 2008 at 09:05

tolien said:
No, it looks like BT think that the line is possibly poor.

It's almost certainly not the line. Tried a different browser? What browser(s) have you tried?
What does start, run, cmd, nslookup [site that doesn't work] give you?

I've only tried IE7 on the actual PC and then I tried IE on my XDA Mini-S (Windows Mobile), so I couldn't imagine it to be the browser especially how the PC worked at mine via cable router with no problems.

The router gives to faults in the diagnostics section, from the top of my head it was "failed to ping ISP gateway" and "failed to ping DNS" I *think*.

I'll try NSlookup next time I'm round!

Cheers for help so far

yeomansinc · 23 Apr 2008 at 21:03

tolien said:
No, it looks like BT think that the line is possibly poor.

It's almost certainly not the line. Tried a different browser? What browser(s) have you tried?
What does start, run, cmd, nslookup [site that doesn't work] give you?

Site that doesn't work....
Non-authoritive answer:
Name : www.amazon.co.uk
Address: 87.238.85.129

Site that works....
Non-authoritive answer:
Name : www.l.google.com
Address: 66.249.93.147
66.249.93.99
66.249.93.104
Aliases: www.google.co.uk
www.google.com

Also, OCUK via IP does not work.

ci_newman · 24 Apr 2008 at 16:22

This sniffs of a DNS or an MTU size problem to me...

Take the DNS addresses for OpenDNS with you on your next visit and try using them instead.

It might be worth checking that you've got the WAN config set up properly with the correct values

[Edit] Linky

yeomansinc · 24 Apr 2008 at 17:50

ci_newman said:
This sniffs of a DNS or an MTU size problem to me...

Take the DNS addresses for OpenDNS with you on your next visit and try using them instead.

It might be worth checking that you've got the WAN config set up properly with the correct values

[Edit] Linky

First thing I have to do is - LOL! This is because, everyone has replied with the same answer today....however, yours (the link you've supplied!) has been the most useful

Although, I won't count my chickens yet..

Basically, orange technical support in a faraway place have been useless, but Orange from closer to home have started calling us now with some use. However, they weren't originally useful until my GF's Dad told them "You've recently taken over part of the exchange haven't you?", to which eventually they said to download this program to change the MTU of your ethernet adapter (they should have probably said the router though, so I wont be downloading the program, I'll be changing it on the router).....They're ringing back later when I'm there anyway...

D-Link replied today saying the same thing, but without the values to change it to. Also, my GF's Dad spoke to IT at work who knew someone who had the same problem...they also said about the MTU.

Now you've supplied me with a list of MTU values and if it works, this makes you >*

Thanks a lot, I'll let you know how I get on

yeomansinc · 24 Apr 2008 at 20:21

ci_newman said:
MTU size problem to me...
[/URL]

You'll never guess what PC I'm typing from now!

Router was set @ 1492, wouldn't set to 1500 so presumed the ethernet adapter was the one set at 1500. Changed that using the utility to 1492, restarted and I'm here!

Thanks a lot for your help mate, and everyone that gave me some time too.

Sin_Chase · 24 Apr 2008 at 23:28

yeomansinc said:
You'll never guess what PC I'm typing from now!

Router was set @ 1492, wouldn't set to 1500 so presumed the ethernet adapter was the one set at 1500. Changed that using the utility to 1492, restarted and I'm here!

Thanks a lot for your help mate, and everyone that gave me some time too.

1492 is the Max MTU for a ppoe connection, 1500 for PPoA.

Its interesting it was that as I was thinking of mentioning it but have only read about problems recently with Vista's method of handling MTU (dynamically) and it being incompatible with older routers.