Problems with ADSL in Win XP

[Trond Ruud]

Hi
I'm connected to the Internet via an ADSL/Ethernet 704/128 bps
connection, Adapter Type: Ethernet 802.3 - LAN Ethernet: SMC EZ Card
10/100 (SMC1255TX)

Via the System Commander boot Manager I have Win XP-pro (sp1) and
Win98SE plus Mandrake Linux 9.1 installed in separate, independant
partitions (i.e. no dual booting.)

The ADSL connection works fine in both Win98SE and Mandrake Linux 9.1,
but is extremely unstable in XP. According to the Customer Support at my
ISP (Tiscali of Norway) the problem must somehow lie with WinXP, since
the connection is stable and working in Win98SE and Mandrake Linux 9.1,
plus the fact that the basic connection LEDS on my ADSL router indicate
that it has stable communication with the Tiscali server. The
instability manifests itself by OE constantly proclaiming that the mail
and news servers can't be found, and by IE issuing Not Found messages
when links are clicked. The problem can be solved, temporarily, by doing
a disable followed by an enable operation on the LAN card in Network
Connections, but this "cure" seldom lasts more than 5-10 minutes. I have
downloaded the latest driver from SMC and deinstalled/reinstalled the
card in Device Manager more than once. (When trying to update the SMC
driver from within Device Manager I invariably get the message that the
best driver is already installed, so the old driver is kept...)

Any ideas on what can/should be done?
Trond Ruud,
Norway

 

[allan grossman [ms-mvp]]

Hello, Trond -

Try shutting off the DNS Client service on your machine.

Right-click "My Computer" and select "Manage".
Under "Services and Applications" stop and then disable
the "DNS Client" service. This should fix you right up.

Windows XP removes servers from it's list of available
DNS servers if they don't respond within an appropriate
time - eventually you can be left with no DNS servers.

You don't need the DNS Client service unless you're part
of a Win2k or later domain.

Good luck!

 

[Trond Ruud]

Thanks Allan
I havent been on much tonight, but so far your receipe seems to be
working! Sure is a relief after my weeks of endless disable/enable
ethernet exercises just to download the e-mail.
I was about to give up on XP and go back to Win98SE or switch to
Mandrake Linux after all the internet problems in XP, but with several
hundred $ worth of win32 software, leaving Windows wasn't much of an
option.
Microsoft should make disabling the "DNS Client" service part of future
XP upgrades/patches I think.

Thank you
Trond Ruud,
Norway


In

Hello, Trond -

Try shutting off the DNS Client service on your machine.

Right-click "My Computer" and select "Manage".
Under "Services and Applications" stop and then disable
the "DNS Client" service. This should fix you right up.

Windows XP removes servers from it's list of available
DNS servers if they don't respond within an appropriate
time - eventually you can be left with no DNS servers.

You don't need the DNS Client service unless you're part
of a Win2k or later domain.

Good luck!

(...)