digiweb slow on first time connection...

DJB

Hi,

I've got Digiweb Metro 3MB installed at home and I use it quite a bit. I find that it is a bit slow when connecting to a site for the first time but once it has connected, every other page runs fast. It's a 3-6 second delay in that initial connection and it's really starting to annoy me. I got on to support a while back and they told me to change my dns server, which I've done but still the same.

I think the problem lies in the dns server getting the information as to where the site is hosted. If I type in an IP address, it gets there straight away and as I mentioned, if I have already connected to the site in the past few minutes, it goes fast because it knows where it is.

Is the DNS server slow to respond, do you think? Is there a way of speeding it up or changing it to a faster one? Or maybe I could install my own DNS server?

Anyone have the same problem or make a suggestion to speed things up?

Rgds,

Dave

Psygnosis

Do a search for open Dns and use these as your secondary DNS server. You may have to do this on the router.

watty

What operating system and router/firewall are you using (if any) in addition to the modem?
I've never had a DNS problem.

lucernarian

DJB, was the problem fixed by OpenDNS? I have to say that Digiweb's DNS always works barring 3 or 4 occasions in the last 18 months when it didn't work at all.

DJB

I installed the new dns servers (primary and secondary) from www.opendns.com onto my router and everything is moving much faster now. Wahoo! There is no delay now before getting to any website. I've taken a note of my old dns just in case but it's working great now.

Thanks for your help Psygnosis!

watty - I'm using a Buffalo Wireless G AirStation. I didn't think it was the router because I had a Belkin router in before this one and it was the same on it.

TBC - It wasn't that their DNS didn't work. It was more that it was slow. I'm not 100% of the working of DNS but here is my understanding of it:

- I make a request for a website address,
- this request goes to the dns server,
- they check the cache,
- if its there they direct you to the ip address of the server it is hosted on,
- if its not, it looks up another server for the information.

I believe the breakdown (or should I say 3-6 second delay) was happening when the information was not in the local dns cache and it had to look it up elsewhere. The cache would get cleared out on maybe a 24 hour basis so each day, same delay happens trying to get to sites.

As I say... all is working great now. No noticeable delay. Should I report this to digiweb again do you think?

watty

try again with Digiweb DNS when it's fine incase it was a coincidence.

I recently got upgraded in speed, and on the wired lan pages just pop up almost instantly. The WiFi sometimes seems to go to sleep and a second pass before anything happens sometimes. But we don't use the the WiFi for DNS or routing, it's only an airpoint. We have a separate Firewall/NAT router.

DJB

I just tried Digiweb dns again and back to the same old problem. This was happening for 4 months now... so it was not an isolated incodent. I'll stick with opendns, me thinks! Unless there is a reason I shouldn't be?

Moriarty

DJB, log a call with support about it. Explain that the problem has disappeared since you started using different DNS servers and you can replicate the problem by setting them back to digiweb servers.