Wierd DNS problem on home network

DaSilva

Have a home network like this:

                 DSL Modem / Router / DHCP Server
                                 |
                                 |
                WiFi Router (running in switch mode only)
                                 |
                                 |
              PC's some connected by ethernet, some WiFi

There is generally 3+ pc's on the network, two desktops and a laptop are always there. One desktop is on Ethernet to WiFi router and has no problems.
The other laptop and desktop are connected wirelessly, these are the two pc's that have the problem. At seemingly random intervals they fail to resolve addresses for a few seconds (anywhere from 10seconds - 1 or 2 minutes) Pages wont load etc... I'm sure this is DNS related as any other active connections continue working fine (such as downloads etc), but just to make sure I did test it by trying to establish new connections to IP's which works, and trying to establish new connections to domain names which doesn't work.

I tried changing DNS server on the Wifi pc's too other DNS servers but the problem remains, so I figure it might be some wireless settings on the WiFi AP but I have no idea on how to configure the more advanced settings.

axer

One you have network connectivity then there should not be a problem.

Have you performed a "ping <DEFAULT_GATEWAY_IP> -t" to see if it a network connectivity problem?

Try 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2 as your name servers to see if it makes a difference.

You could also download netstumbler to see if your wireless channel is being used by anyone else.

It could also be spyware causing the problems since they often mess with DNS settings or latch onto the tcp stack.

Capt'n Midnight

firefox uses it's own dns cache
NTL dns has been a bit flaky recently

www.opendns.org if you suspect a problem with ISP

use nslookup at the command prompt