What causes this? please help.

adandem

Hi,

For sometime I have been having major problems with my pc/internet.
I have Virgin Boradband and have only have the problem since being with Virgin.

Whenever I search for anything or open a page, I nearly always get the 'this page cannot be diplayed' message. I end up refreshing several time before a connection is established.

I have spoken to Virgin as I thought the connection was dropping, they said it has not when they trace it from their end.

I have checked all my settings etc. and they seem fine, any ideas anyone?

fwor

It's ~probably~ a Domain Name Server (DNS) problem, either through misconfiguration at your end or at your ISP's end. DNS is critical for web browsing to work, and if you can't access DNS you will not be able to resolve URLs (such as www.moneysavingexpert.com) to routable IP addresses.

If you (or anybody else) has altered the configuration of your PC's network settings or your router config then it may be at your end. It could also be caused by installing a firewall and not configuring it correctly. But any of these would normally break things permanently, not intermittently like you are seeing.

Otherwise, if you've installed exactly as per the ISP instructions, the problem is probably at their end.

espresso

To eliminate DNS problems, try using OpenDNS here.

fwor

That's interesting - should be a good way of testing the theory.

It's also interesting that they make their money by inserting adverts into your search results. That's not a problem (Google et al do that anyway) but it does make me wonder how they actually do that...

adandem

Thanks everyone will have to look closer ibn a couple of days MIL just arrived(:mad: ) so Christmas is under way. Wish me luck!

random456

Can someone explain what inputting these settings in the above link does exactly?

fwor

Yes - all it does is that instead of your DNS queries going to the servers operated by your ISP (which most people use by default) they get directed to servers operated by OpenDNS. So if you change to OpenDNS and your browser starts to behave normally, it demonstrates that your ISP's DNS is playing up (or maybe it demonstrates that the DNS settings at your PC were wrong previously...)