Sorry - Utterly O/T IT Question

[Anglo-Frenchman]

I wonder if I might pick your collective brains about an issue I have been experiencing with net access. Since changing to Vista, I have noticed that I am unable to access certain specific websites which before seemed to work OK - such Ryanair and Orange.fr. Whenever I try to access them the little progress bar at the bottom of the screen just grinds to a halt after about 5 minutes or eventually I lose the will to live!

I did a web search on this problem and found some stuff which suggested that certain sites are not 'compatible' with Vista (RFC 1323) something to do with 'backwards compatibility'. There was a fix quoted which I have tried by typing in 'cmd' into the search box and typing in a number of commands after the prompt. This has not fixed the problem so I'm really not sure what to do next. The strange thing is that we have two other computers (Win2000 and XP) running through the same router neither of which want to access these sites either. Is it a problem with the router then?

I have up to date AVG virus and spyware protection and all other sites etc seem to work fine.

I don't know if this is something any of you have experienced or if you have any other suggestions but I would be grateful for any pointers you might have.

Ta,

Ged

[pugwash]

First type 193.252.122.10 into your browser- this is one of many IP adresses that should bring up www.orange.fr. If this works then you have a problem with your ISP, probably as a result of update faults with their DNS servers or you having the wrong DNS IP adresses in your router.

If entering the IP adress directly doesn't help (you can resolve any IP adress from a website name simply by pinging it - start-> run-> CMD ->ping www.whatever.com) then it's a probably a problem with your setup.

try turning off all your antivirus, spyware and firewall programs including the inbuilt Windows stuff then try accessing the sites. This will rule out local settings as being an issue.

What router do you have and how are your PC connected? You may find that your routes has a firewall that is blocking these sites or that NAT is not worknig correctly.

one of the best things you can do is use the tracert command under the text line interface (the cmd thing). basically you Tracert instead of ping to an IP adress or web address and it tells you how mamny steps it takes to get to a site- if it can't reach the final site then it will tell you where it failed- have a look at the report if gives you and you should recognis some names which gives you hints of where the problem lies. You can also used soemthing like viual IP trace to see geographically where the problem is.

HTH

[Anglo-Frenchman]

Thanks very much. I will try some of these measures and see what happens. I regret that I am not particularly IT-minded so unfortunately your last paragraph passed well over my head. Sorry!

[cipx2]

Also, for orange.fr you can try:

193.252.149.30

193.252.122.103

Try ping, as puwash suggested, and also " ping the_numbers_were_suggested " as well and report back.

[moose]

hmm install firefox

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

[Anglo-Frenchman]

Sorry to be a bit thick but what do you mean by 'ping'?

[cipx2]

For all questions that start with "What is ...", "What means ..." and so on you should always use google Put the word/concept/phrase in a google search field and you're home.

for ping try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping

firefox or any other browser won't help him if he doesn't have access to the resource/server he's after. so this is we're trying to find first.

[Anglo-Frenchman]

I feel that as the problem seems to persist with all of the 3 PCs in the house (Vista, Win2000 & XP) I can't help but feel that (logically) the issue must be with the router (Belkin) as this is only common link. What I don't know is how to alter or access the controls of this device.

[Bull Bar Cowboy]

Generally the router will be accessed by its own IP address, which is a non routable static.............

Try typing into your browser ............. 192.168.1.1 ............. if that doesn’t work try 192.168.1.256

This should bring up the router settings page.................

Look at the DNS setting in particular .................. also check the DNS settings in your network connections within the operating systems...........

Alternatively throw the Belkin in the bin and get a Cisco, Linksys, or Viking router ........

Ian

[pugwash]

ahh that's where your wrong.

if the problem is with all threre of your computers it could be your router OR your service provider (ISP). The ping trick will tell you which one.

When you type a website address into internet explorer (or any other browser) the computer talks to your router saying it needs to find a website. Your router has adresses for what are called DNS servers, these are big computers that your ISP runs that hold adresses of every website in the world and the details of how any computer can find them. IP adresses which are the ones above (195.212.103.20) are the actual adresses of the websites, and are what a computer needs to know before it can talk to that website- the bit we use (ie the www.whatever.com) is just an easy to remember nomenclature for everyone to remember- Computers themselves can do nothing with the www bit!

what you have happening is one of two things- 1. your computers cannot reach the relevant website- either because they are stuggling to translate the www bit into an IP adress (which is what the DNS servers do) or 2. your PC is reaching the website and getting nothing back, either because your ISP is blocking the site, your router is blocking the site, or you PCs are blocking the site.

There are other esoteric things that could be happening but they are pretty unlikely.

If you can work out how to Ping then that will at least tell you if you are reaching the relevant site or not. unfortunately no one can do this apart form you sat at your PC!

[moose]

I feel that as the problem seems to persist with all of the 3 PCs in the house (Vista, Win2000 & XP) I can't help but feel that (logically) the issue must be with the router (Belkin) as this is only common link. What I don't know is how to alter or access the controls of this device.

Your problem is most likely with the isp (the company you connect to the Internet with) as it sound like they have a routing problem.

meaning that traffic from your computer trying to get to www.orange.fr is being lost...

One to test this (but not always as they might be firewall the trace traffic) is to do a trace route from one of your computers to www.orange.fr and see how far the traffic gets:

from your windows xp machine (cos i dont know about vista) goto start --> run in the run command txt box type "cmd" and open, this should bring up a black command window in this window type "tracert www.orange.fr" or if that does nothing then use the ip some one else gave.

the output of above will give the route that traffic is trying to take across your isp network.

So i would call your isp support or email them (some times cheaper ) ....

[cipx2]

192.168.1.256 doesn't exist

The Belkin manual would certainly help.

I have the feeling that Anglo-Frenchman is not experienced enough for solving such things over-the-phone/web.

On other hand, I remember from my trips in France that ISPs there have a funny way, to say the least, of providing the service.

Anglo-Frenchman, my advice would be to find someone in the neighborhood who knows a bit about PCs and networking and ask for help. ISP could help also.

[Bull Bar Cowboy]

Sorry ................... I wouldn't make a good titless tart ............. typo .....192.168.1.255

Ian

[Philj]

Sorry ................... I wouldn't make a good titless tart laugh.gif ............. typo .....192.168.1.255

192.168.1.255 won't be it either. 192.168.1.255 is the broadcast address for the 192.168.1.0 range.

To find out your routers IP address, do the following:-

Open up a command prompt/dos box (not sure how to do this on Vista - possibly by doing Start->All Programs->run and then typing cmd into the run box)

once the command prompt is up, type ipconfig. You will see something like this:-

H:\>ipconfig

Windows IP Configuration

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.39.9

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.254.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.38.1

The default gateway ( in bold) will be the IP address of your router.

[Bull Bar Cowboy]

Yes, Phil you are quite right ....................... I thought the BT home hub (POS ) was on 255 ................ but I just plugged it in and checked ......... its on 192.168.1.254 ..................

However, most seems to use 192.168.1.1. ..................... certainly my Vikings, Cisco's, and Linksys ..........

Ian

[Anglo-Frenchman]

Having read through the plethora of advice kindly given here (very many thanks for that guys) and having tried some, I think that you are right in that this is not an issue I can resolve myself. I may be fluent in English/French but I'm afraid the world of IT is still Greek to me! I found the access for the router (192.168.2.1) but even that page won't load either so that was a bit of a dead end.

Seems I'll be parting with some hard-earned € to get it sorted.

Thanks again to all.

Ged

[Philj]

Yes, Phil you are quite right ....................... I thought the BT home hub (POS ) was on 255 ................ but I just plugged it in and checked ......... its on 192.168.1.254 ..................

However, most seems to use 192.168.1.1. ..................... certainly my Vikings, Cisco's, and Linksys ..........

Ian

BBC: I may not much about Land Rovers, but when it comes to IT I know my stuff!

Anglo-Frenchman: Who is your internet service provider ?

[Bull Bar Cowboy]

BBC: I may not much about Land Rovers, but when it comes to IT I know my stuff!

Ian

[cipx2]

Anglo-Frenchman, like I said before, try to find someone among your friends, co-workers, friend of a friend or even kids (more like teenagers) in the neighborhood.

I had a similar case with a friend of mine in UK whose girl went to Paris to study, had problems installing the toys ISP gave her and the ISP charged her big money to come over and solve things (in the order of 150 AFAIR).

Given the fact that it doesn't seem to be an urgent matter, maybe you'll be lucky and get away with a couple of beers or lollipops

[Philj]

You could also try(at the command prompt):

ipconfig /flushdns

Just in case your computers/router are caching stale DNS records for the affected sites.

[TomG]

Couple of thoughts...

MTU problem: see http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/MTU.htm and look at the 'Tweaking your MTU' link to correct it. You may also want to check the MTU setting on your router - to do this you'll need to enter the IP address of your router into your web browser and log into it and have a hunt through the settings.

DNS problem: Your ISP's DNS server's may be overloaded, poorly configured, etc. Consider using OpenDNS http://www.opendns.com/ , i've used it for a couple of years now and definite improvement.

Firefox: Once you've got the above things sorted, get Firefox with the Adblock Plus and Fasterfox addins. it's so much better than Internet Explorer.

[Orgasmic Farmer]

My Belkin runs on

192.168.2.1

as the factory default....

[jimmy_neutron]

Do as moose said and install firefox.

Once installed, go onto the internet using firefox instead of internet explorer. Then you should be able to access the sites you want.

With some setups with some settings, some pop ups can cause this freezing kind of effect. Its kind of because your firewall is looking for an answer to a question that it didn't bother to ask you.

Could go into this a bit deeper but its not really about land rovers

Nearly forgot to say .. If when you do get on to ryanair or wotever and it asks you if you want to install a plugin then say yes.

[JourneyMan]

Try updating the firmware on the router first, had exactly the same with my Belkin and it wouldn't go to *.co.uk sites but liked *.com

[Anglo-Frenchman]

Thanks for all the advice and help given. I enlisted the help of an (un)willing IT boffin who still has been unable to resolve the issue despite installing firefox, removing all firewalls, anti-virus protection, deleting cookies etc etc. He is completely at a loss as to why I can access some sites and not others such as Orange.fr, Health & Safety Exec etc. Think its is a router issue rather than a PC issue but has admitted defeat for the time being! Computer 1 - 0 IT Boffins