Windows XP Some PC on Network can't open all web sites

[Humperandjumper]

Hello forum,

OK, my first post so I'll try to give as much info as poss. I have recently changed from an ADSL USB modem and P2P in my home network to a Router. 5 PCs all running XP Pro SP2, all with same workgroup name and all on fixed IP addresses 192.168.1.X. 2 PCs are CAT5 to router (US Robotics Sureconnect) 3 PCs wireless (WPA encrypted). All can share drives and access the Internet. But Only one PC can open all sites. The other 4 can access Google, this site and many others but not some others such as Microsoft.Com. All are pointing to the same DNS (the routers IP address). The same addresses work or fail on the remaining 4 PCs. This is driving me nuts. Anyone seen this before and cured it?
Many thanks in advance

 

[Ian]

Hi and welcome

I had a similar problem on the router I am using at the moment, and reseting the router from the browser console worked a treat. I can't see any physical reason why you can't access some sites from some PCs. Can you assign IPs through DHCP?

 

[Humperandjumper]

Ian,
Thanks for the reply. I have tried resetting the router but to no avail. I can use DHCP and auto detect DNS with exactly the same results. 4 PCs most but not all web sites accessible 5th PC access to everything. If it helps as a pointer the 5th machine is the one that the original ADSL modem was connected to and acted as the ICS for the others when I had the P2P network. I'll keep digging as at least it is consistent across the other 4 PCs

 

[Wolfgang]

Hi Hump
Change the gateway and the dns numbers on all the four pcs to the same ip as the server.For example:
If your server ip addressis 192.168.1.1 then On all the others put the gateway and the dns 192.168.1.1.
Maybe this should fix the problem.

Regards

 

[tjm4fun]

sounds to me like the other 4 pc's still think that they are using ics.
What I would try is to remove the ics service in network properties on the 5th machine, the former server.
Let your router handle everything, set each pc to dhcp.
If the other pc's have firewalls running, see if you can completely reset the firewalls and rebuild the definitions.
open a command window on the failing pc's and issue these 2 commands:
ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /registerdns

One other thing to try, on the sites that are not accessable, try to ping the numeric ip of the site. you can get that from the working pc. if the ping works, try using that in the address bar, as in
http://70.86.33.18

 

[Humperandjumper]

Thanks for all the advice but, still no joy! I thought I'd try the various ping tests and this produced some interesting results. All the sites I can't get to from the 4 PCs do not return a ping i.e. it appears the sites hide a ping response. (www.microsoft.com being one). I can do a reverse DNS lookup to fing out the IP address i.e. Ping www.microsoft.com and I get the IP address returned in square brackets.
I then tried Tracert IP address and off it went. By the 15th hop I'd got as far as on to servers in the States (I am in the UK) and then things start timing out. So where to now? Anyone any further ideas?
Thanks in advance.

 

[tjm4fun]

ok, hadn;t thought of this. Try a ping of a url in words, likely it will fail, but see if it returns the ip address. if it does, the pc's have their dns tables setup correctly. most sites are not pingable, so it will likely look like this:
C:\>ping yahoo.com

Pinging yahoo.com [66.94.234.13] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 66.94.234.13:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

Note it did find the correct ip address, and using that in the address bar will also work to reach yahoo.

Now the fact that the pc's get to some point and die only indicates that they have partial routing. I;ve seen this when a proxy is being used, then removed and the system still believes that the proxy is in effect.
Check in internet options, connections, lan for proxies setup. if there are any, remove them.
For one time,let windows automatically detect settings in the top box. Turn off the option after getting to a page tho, it only slows down page loading in the future.

By any chance, do you have another browser installed on one of those machines? like firefox to try?

 

[Humperandjumper]

Thanks again for all your help.
OK tried that and still no success. I typed Ping www.microsoft.com and got:-

Pinging lb1.www.ms.akadns.net [207.46.225.60] with 32 bytes of data:



Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Request timed out.

Request timed out.



Ping statistics for 207.46.225.60:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

Tyed http://207.46.255.60 into browser and got nothing.

So I typed Tracert 207.46.225.60 which produced the following output:-

Tracing route to 207.46.225.60 over a maximum of 30 hops



1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.1

2 54 ms 14 ms 14 ms rt-lostg18.dial.aol.com [195.93.23.210]

3 * 19 ms 83 ms iptfarmlg-los-ve3.proxy.aol.com [195.93.17.222]

4 15 ms 95 ms 15 ms 172.17.169.107

5 856 ms 15 ms 22 ms pop1-loh-S0-2-0.atdn.net [66.185.136.229]

6 70 ms 15 ms 14 ms bb2-loh-S0-0-0.atdn.net [66.185.136.226]

7 * 365 ms * bb2-nye-P5-0.atdn.net [66.185.152.141]

8 157 ms 198 ms 204 ms bb1-nye-P2-0.atdn.net [66.185.153.20]

9 152 ms 138 ms 138 ms bb2-ash-P10-0.atdn.net [66.185.152.87]

10 210 ms 90 ms 113 ms pop1-ash-S1-0-0.atdn.net [66.185.144.195]

11 89 ms 158 ms 126 ms XO.atdn.net [66.185.144.146]

12 144 ms 136 ms 382 ms p5-0-0.RAR1.Washington-DC.us.xo.net [65.106.3.133]

13 194 ms * 429 ms p1-0-0.RAR1.SanJose-CA.us.xo.net [65.106.0.38]

14 164 ms 250 ms 164 ms p0-0.IR1.SanJose2-CA.us.xo.net [65.106.5.182]

15 184 ms 245 ms 182 ms 206.111.6.62.ptr.us.xo.net [206.111.6.62]

16 465 ms 259 ms 208 ms ten8-1.sjc-76cb-1b.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.33.89]

17 325 ms 1206 ms 182 ms pos6-1.tuk-76cb-1b.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.34.170]

18 * 182 ms 182 ms pos3-0.iuskixcpxc1201.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.36.150]

19 394 ms 264 ms 212 ms pos1-0.tke-12ix-1a.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.155.1]

20 * 262 ms 256 ms po13.tuk-65ns-mcs-1b.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.224.217]

21 * * * Request timed out.

22 * * * Request timed out.

23 * * * Request timed out.

24 * * * Request timed out.

25 * * * Request timed out.

26 * * * Request timed out.

27 * * * Request timed out.

28 * * * Request timed out.

29 * * * Request timed out.

30 * * * Request timed out.



Trace complete.

My DNS is 205.188.146.145

So stuck I still am :-(
I'll download firefox and see if it makes a difference.
Regards

 

[tjm4fun]

is AOL your isp?

Did you check that there is no proxy settingsin internet options?

In the network properties for you lan adapter (on a non working machine) there should be only an entry in the box for tcpip for that adapter andpossibly a firewall entry for that adapter. in the tcpip properties, be sure it is set to obtaind address automatically. Next click the advanced button, and be sure there are no entries in the boxes in the dns and wins tabs.
Lastly check your hosts file. it is a simple text file, located int the windows/system32/drivers folder. it is called HOSTS with no extension. i should have only an entry for local loopback, 127.0.0.1. if it has more than that, post the contents.

 

[TECHGUNS]

It might be the software for your router is proxy. Some routers make your server a proxy. If all your net IPs check out the softwares proxy filters maybe getting in the way that might be why sometime sites open or dont. I see ya pinged eveything and it seems not ok. Ya might do a online proxy test on your PC intead of pinging sites from your PC.

http://stealthtests.lockdowncorp.com/

See if ya have proxy settings in the software.

Ya might have to use tunneling software on your other PCs.

Http Tunnel Client is free for low bandwith use. If all else fails ya might try this on one of the problem PCs to see if it fixes it. I has uninstaller if ya dont want it.

http://www.http-tunnel.com/html/solutions/http_tunnel/client.asp

I think it configures your browsers when ya install it but ya might have to do other programs manually.

 

[tjm4fun]

After re-reading your first post and reviewing the users guide for a sureconnect wireless router, you should have your pc's set for dhcp. if not, you would need to get the ip of the dns servers your isp uses and put it in along with the defined addresses. These can change, so old ones from previous setups may be invalid.

 

[Humperandjumper]

Thanks for bearing with me.
Yes AOL is my ISP and I have the same results using Firefox. I have only one entry in my Hosts file. I have set up DHCP and below is the result of me typing ipconfig /all at the cmd prompt:-

Windows IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Sylvia

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No



Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection 2:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : U.S. Robotics 802.11g Wireless Turbo Adapter

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-C0-49-A8-E5-0F

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.2

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 23 October 2005 15:27:10

Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 24 October 2005 15:27:10

This is from a laptop that does not connect to all sites. There are no proxy setting in the browser.

Still puzzled :-(

 

[tjm4fun]

That does not look right to me. The dns server address should be something other than the same ip as the gateway and dhcp server. Check on the working machine, it is usually an outside ip address, unless you router does something strange, but most home routers point to the ones supplied by the isp.

 

[Humperandjumper]

Hi,
The router does the translation. The attached shows the routers configuration screen and it translates 205.188.146.145 tp 192.168.1.1 and below is the IPCONFIG /All from the working machine. Note not DHCP



Windows IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : time1800xp

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No



Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NVIDIA nForce MCP Networking Controller

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0E-A6-B8-B0-EF

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.18

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1


By the way I am really grateful for your support.

 

[Humperandjumper]

OK Chatted to my network people at work and they can't think of anything either. I would like to point the router to another DNS. Any one out there have the IP address of a DNS that I miht be able to try the results from?

 

[tjm4fun]

Put the dns server address from your wan pic (205.188.146.145) in the dns server list in tcpip properties for your card.
That should work.

Life would be easier running dhcp tho, cause isp's do change dns server ips from time to time, and if they do, you will lose access until you manually update your configs. they also normally have 2 dns servers for backup purposes, but that is not shown in your setup. I would check on this. I have 4 dns servers from my isp, and all 4 are in my statically defined machines config.

 

[Humperandjumper]

Ok, I tried setting everything to DHCP but with exactly the same results. Then horror of horrors I ended up having to reimage the single working machine to the state it was a week ago. Guess what? After reimaging it could only open some sites! By the way that's why I haven't relpied sooner. So I set about some trial and error on the wireless laptops and..

Hurrah, if I disable WPA-PSK encryption then it all works perfectly.

Well, this is not a good solution as I don't want an insecure system but, in the meantime I have turned off the SSID transmission having given the network a really weird name of letters and numbers and set up MAC filtering so only my cards are allowed.

Anyone seen this before and got any suggestions?

By the way, the wired ones are still one can short of a six pack

 

[tjm4fun]

By the way, the wired ones are still one can short of a six pack

ok, for the wireless, I've seen issues with the encryption and the channel the wireless system is running on, see if you can select a different channel for the wireless units. No valid reason I know of for this, but I've seen it happen multiple times.

now for the wired ones, I am surprised they don;t work dhcp. if you do an ipconfig /all what does it show ?
especially the dns and gateway.
it almost sounds like there is sometype of setup issue with your modem router.
this should not be complicated to setup, it should plug and play.
Do they have a support forum at the usrobotics site where you canask about setup issues?

 

[Humperandjumper]

Ok,
I am still working through various channels and encryption settings. Below I have posted the result of ipconfig /all
Firstly the wired previously now non fully working and then secondly a wired laptop that is now working (but with encryption off).

Thanks in advance
Wired

Windows IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : time1800xp

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No



Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NVIDIA nForce MCP Networking Controller

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0E-A6-B8-B0-EF

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.4

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 01 November 2005 07:13:39

Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 02 November 2005 07:13:39

Wireless

Windows IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Sylvia600

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Mixed

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No



Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection 3:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : U.S. Robotics 802.11g Wireless Turbo Adapter

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-C0-49-A8-E4-8C

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.2

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 01 November 2005 07:13:16

Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 02 November 2005 07:13:16

 

[Humperandjumper]

Follow up
Tried WPA-PSK on all channels and same result some sites work others don't. Changed WPA key and same result.
I can use WEP Shared Authenification on all channels. So that is a result Hidden SSID MAC filtering and WEP. Nearly secure! This is a home network so, this is probably good enough. I still have not sorted out the wired ones and I can not understand why reimaging to a working ghost failed but I'll keep trying and post any news. I have not found a US Robotics support forum yet. Any clues anyone?