I'm have a strange internet issue where when connected to the internet via wifi to my router at home, I have trouble accessing some websites. For example I usually can't access Google if I enter "google.com" in the address bar in a browser, but can access it without any issue via it's IP address (59.167.145.251). Some other websites are affected too, e.g. I have some trouble accessing Microsoft sites, and sometimes when I'm loading websites in general some of the images fail to load. This is really puzzling me, as other computers connected to the same network experience none of these issues, and the laptop in question doesn't either when connected to a different network. I can ping google.com. I have gone to a lot of trouble to try and fix the issues, with no luck. I experience the same behaviour in IE and Chrome. I am using no proxy server. I have run multiple av/malware scans which have shown my computer to be clean, as has TDSSKiller. My hosts file has not been changed. I have used multiple tools to reset networking in Windows. My LSP stack has no abnormal entries. I have run SFC. I have run ComboFix and RKill. I have tried using a USB wifi adapter - this didn't fix the issue. Disabling Windows Firewall didn't help, neither did using an antivirus with its own firewall. I am certain my computer is malware free. I've just started using my current laptop, and I have cloned my hard drive from a previous laptop which died to use in it. I had no such internet problems with old laptop which was running the same Windows. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I will point out again that when connected to another internet source, I don't have any issues accessing websites. I just realised I haven't tried accessing the new using Safe Mode, so I will reboot and try that now.
I just booted into Safe Mode with Network, and was able to access google.com and IE also loaded it's msn.com homepage which it normally can't. I rebooted and just as before when not in Safe Mode, I still have the internet issues.
sounds like a dns server issue. you say you can access to the websites in question by typing their ip but can't when you type their name. typing a website's ip directly bypasses the dns server lookup so you should try a different dns server and see if it works. remember to flush your dns cache after you setup the new dns servers on your system.
That says the problem is in the laptop software and not in your router. In safe mode, you are not loading most drivers and services that load normally.
Yes, that makes senses, but I am at a loss as to what I have installed that could be causing it. Particularity when it only is an issue with one router.
I have now done a clean boot - disabling all startup items and non Microsoft services, which did not fix the issue. I've also just run some scans with HijackThis and some similar tools, and I couldn't find anything suspicious.
I have now run the advanced repair in System Repair Engineer and have also run RefreshPC, neither have helped.
@roger_m ......The symptoms you describe are typical when the system ARP cache gets corrupted. ie certain sites don't load or are as slow as a geriatric snail on tranquillizers. Open the command line in Admin mode & give this string a whirl as this deletes & removes any corruptions in the cache which then rebuilds it self. netsh interface ip delete arpcache ... The press enter & wait a few secs. Give it a reboot although it should not be necessary & all could be good again. Br Mike
@MikeMT That didn't work, but thanks for the suggestion. I'll point out again that this issue is only happening with one router. When I'm away and connected to a router different location, or when I'm tethered to my phone's internet or using my mobile 4G internet, I have no problems.
Oops I will have to go to Spec Savers & buy another pair of glasses as I missed the one router problem.
To update my situation, I just ran a few internet repair tools I found listed in an article at raymond.cc, and none of them helped.
I think its a router prob. Check all the router settings. Once I had similar prob, not this serious & the prob was my router had ISP DNS & I had installed Comodo Internet Security with their DNS so system had Comodo DNS & router had ISP DNS & therefore the prob coz changing system DNS to ISP solved the prob for me. Also once I had to reinstall router i.e start all again coz nothing was working & after fresh reinstall of router prob was solved here. And once my cousin had a prob. In router settings, ISP DNS was set i.e auto detect ISP DNS was enabled & on his system too obtain DNS automatically was the setting but when we checked with ipconfig /all, DNS was shown as 192.168.2.1 or something. We couldn't find out why this was happening. Atlast we manually entered ISP DNS on the system & it worked & solved the prob. Also check with Comodo Cleaning Essentials Quick Repair, see if it shows any probs/changes? Would also be good to check with CCE Autorun Analyzer. KillSwitch too to see the processes are fine. Windows Repair All In One is also a good software to repair system.
@narenbisht I set the DNS servers manually to the addresses of my ISP's DNS servers. It did help initially, but the net connection kept dropping out on my PC. I did try it a second time, and it did not fix the problems. The DNS servers IP addresses which I got from my ISPs website were the same ones the router is showing (it's not set manually, but it shows what DNS server settings it is getting from the ISP). Next I tried setting the primary DNS server to Google DNS (8.8.8. but after a reboot I could got net a working internet connection, so I reverted to using automatic DNS settings. I ran CCE, and the Quick Repair found nothing relevant (it only picked up that I have UAC disabled). Killswitch found nothing of interest. I'm had a look at Autorun Analyzer, but I didn't see anything suspicious. I have already run the Repair Winsock & DNS Cache repair in Windows Repair.
I just ran some more scans with Rising PC Doctor and 360 Total Security (in case its system repair engine found something abnormal). Rising PC Doctor found one item to delete, and 360 found nothing. Right now my internet is working fine, but I suspect it's just temporary, as very occasionally it does work fine.
What about the Event Viewer, what does it say? I read you disabled startup items & checked but still do you think we should give a try uninstalling installed FW & AV? We can try IE reset (not restore) or check individual tabs. Its a strange prob. Your system is working with other network so one would think system is fine. Other systems are working fine with the network so one would think router is fine. System & router both are fine so damn where lies the prob?
I'd be very, very cautious of just hitting with so many automatic fixing software at once, cause in hoping to get lucky you can easily break multiple other things in the process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle and I say that having learned it the hard way back in day with learning about too many things running and wasting system resources. Yet It could very well be both your router and your software setup. Have you tried uninstalling all security programs for testing? And what is your router model? There might just be some setting that's messed up on it, or it just plain might be temperamental.
I'm only running one at a time. If I was to break anything I'd have no trouble fixing it. I'm got no antivirus or other realtime security software installed. I've got MBAM and a few other anti malware apps installed, but I know they won't be causing any problems. The router is a Netgear DGN1000.
It's not an option as prior to the issue I was running the same install of Windows on a different laptop with no issues.
Where would I look in Event Viewer? I'm using Windows Firewall and no antivirus. The IE reset has already been done as part of one of the internet repair tools I used.
Have you tried disabling DNS Cache service, as well as DHCP to see, if the problem still persist? Disabling Network Store service might also disregard most issues caused by automatic network settings. You could also temporarily uninstall all internet protocols and leave only IPv4 to eliminate that as possibility as well.