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[fred]

Hi,

I've a BTHomeHub router. It connects to BT with DHCP. On my home network I've stopped using DHCP and assigned all computers a fixed IP address. Since I've done that change I irregularly (about every week or fortnight and no more than one hour at a time) lose the ability to browse websites. I can still ping servers using their IP addresses so I would think it's a DNS problem (pinging BT DNS servers doesn't work), but I can also read newsgroups. BT's solution to the problem is to use dhcp on my home network, which is not an option. Any idea on how to fix the problem and where it might come from?

Thanks in advance

[roseway]

Hi Fred, welcome to the forum.

There really shouldn't be any problem using fixed local IP addresses, so long as your network interface is properly set up. The router should be acting as a DNS relay, and your network interface should specify the router LAN address as its default route. In the network interface you can give the router address as the DNS server, or you can specify the actual BT DNS server addresses. Either should work, but it might be worth trying the other option to what you have now.

Eric

[havelock]

Hi Fred.

Sounds like it could be a couple of things, most likely its the HomeHub caching old DNS entries. You could try manually specifying the DNS servers in the Router config page, or in your network connection properties as Roseway suggested, or have you tried an alternative DNS service?

I Personally use OpenDNS (http://opendns.com)

Primary: 208.67.222.222
Alternate: 208.67.220.220

Whilst you are experiencing the problem does flushing your DNS resolver cache help? (ipconfig /flushdns from a command prompt)

Rgds Havelock

[fred]

Thanks to you both for answering. Following recommendations I've added my router as DNS to my computers.

Havelock, when you mention flushing the DNS cache, is that the router's cache or for each individual computer? As for trying an alternative DNS I wasn't sure whether there was any free alternatives...

As I said in my first post, the problem is infrequent, so I'll keep you posted as to any evolution of the matter. What really gets me is that it happens only episodically (that and BT support being so unhelpful...)

Regards,

Fred

[havelock]

Ipconfig /flushdns clears out the cache on your PC.

A couple more things you can try, then the problem is occuring, try running a ping against a website. Usually you would see something along the lines of "Pinging yahoo.com [66.94.234.13] with 32 bytes of data"

If you get a IP address resolving then check with someone else with an internet connection who can access that site if they get the same IP when they run a ping.