Help! Really strange WiFi problem.

[Deozaan]

Hi everyone,

I just started having an issue yesterday that I can't figure out.

Basically, I can use the internet just fine for about 10 seconds. A page will load, I can ping any servers and get a reply, etc. But then after I load a page or two I can no longer load any websites and I cannot ping any servers. But the strange thing is that my IM programs still connect and my download manager will still download. So I know I have a connection to the internet, but somehow all traffic to my browser (and ping, etc) is being blocked.

The other strange thing about it is that all the other computers on the network work fine and have no issues.

If I go to the command prompt and type "ipconfig /release" followed by "ipconfig /renew" then the process starts over. I can ping and visit a website or two but then suddenly all pings timeout and no websites can be loaded.

HALP!

[mouser]

it sounds to my novice ears like your problem is with the nameservers you are connecting to.

if you find that you can ping websites by their ip address but not by their domain name.. then that would pretty much confirm it.

[steeladept]

If mouser's suggestions don't work out, maybe your ISP is having issues on port 80?  Issues on a single port are very rare, but do happen - almost exclusively due to a misconfiguration somewhere. Try something simple.  If you know of an https site you can hit, see if that works.  They run on a different port and that may stay on constant.  Another option would be to try an FTP.  That runs on port 21 if I remember correctly.  BTW:  DON'T LOGIN to anything you test in case it is something else!

[Deozaan]

it sounds to my novice ears like your problem is with the nameservers you are connecting to.

if you find that you can ping websites by their ip address but not by their domain name.. then that would pretty much confirm it.

How would I find out the IP address?

[Deozaan]

I pinged it on my computer that isn't having problems and then pinged the same IP on the PC with the problems. It all timed out.

Also, https didn't load, and ftp doesn't work either. But my download manager is still chugging along (though sometimes even that stops as well).

EDIT: Here's an interesting thing, though:

The netbook which can succesfully ping resolves www.yahoo.com as www.yahoo.com [67.195.145.138] but my PC with problems resolves www.yahoo.com as any-fp.wa1.b.yahoo.com [67.195.145.138]

So it's the same IP address but the domain name is wrong. Is it a virus/trojan?

EDIT: I tried a few other domains (like donationcoder.com) and they all have the same name on both PCs.

[steeladept]

That points to exactly what Mouser was saying - it is the DNS resolution that is causing the issue.  Now the question is WHY is that.  Could it be a virus?  Yes.  Could it be just a corrupted file and otherwise innocent?  Yes.  Could it be something else entirely?  Yes.  If you can not verify that you are clean, then I would treat it as infected.  If you can verify it is clean, try replacing your HOSTS file.  More information can be found at http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm including a replacement HOSTS file if you are so inclined.  I would tell you more but I am rather new at this part myself.  It does (indirectly) explain a bit about your situation though.

[steeladept]

Actually, http://accs-net.com/hosts/what_is_hosts.html has a really good explanation as well for those interested in the long answer to how HOSTS files work.

One thing I got from this is one of the DNS servers your computer hit could well have updated your HOSTS file with incorrect data causing this to occur.  It SHOULDN'T permanently break your connection though.  That worries me more than the Domain Name mismatch. 

[mouser]

it's reallllly unlikely this has to do with an infection, so don't panic.

[mwb1100]

Just as an FYI - my windows box here at work also resolves www.yahoo.com to any-fp.wa1.b.yahoo.com, but with a slightly different IP address:

Code: (xml)

Z:\temp>ping www.yahoo.com

Pinging any-fp.wa1.b.yahoo.com [67.195.145.137] with 32 bytes of data:

...

I'm not having any problems - I think this is just a part of how Yahoo performs load balancing (a request sent to the hostname www.yahoo.com might be sent to one of several actual machines).

My suggestion would be to power down the PC, then power down the router, then restart both (router first, then PC) if you haven't tried something like this already. Doesn't really help determine what the cause of the problem is, but often hard resets do help clean things up.

[steeladept]

Didn't mean to imply you should panic.  Just using the smell (Ear) test, it doesn't smell (sound) like a virus.  That said, I don't want to say it isn't either, as it could in theory.

Thank you for reiterating that mouser.

[Deozaan]

I tried ipconfig /flushdns and that didn't help.

As I said before (in an edit, so you may have missed) I tried pinging other domains and they resolved to the same IP on both PCs, and with mwb's information it looks like the domain is resolving to the correct IP/name for Yahoo.

My hosts file is empty (well, every line is commented out) so that shouldn't be the problem.

I set my network adapter to use OpenDNS and now when the websites stop working and I try to ping www.yahoo.com I get a message saying "Ping requiest could not find host www.yahoo.com. Please check the name and try again." so when I ping the IP I just get timed out.

That makes me think that when things stop working, I can't even connect to OpenDNS to resolve the IP from the name.

And I'm not panicking. I'm just trying to figure out what it is. If it was a virus at least I'd know and I could take some steps to fix it (even if that meant a format). As it is, I still don't know if it's a software issue or a hardware issue.

[Deozaan]

I just did a tracert and it didn't even make it to the router. They all timed out.

[Deozaan]

Just to narrow down the problem I rebooted into Ubuntu and the internet seems to be running fine. So there's definitely a configuration problem somewhere in Windows.

I'm glad it's not the network adapter, but now to figure out what the problem is in Windows. BTW, I'm running Win7 64-bit.

[Carol Haynes]

Firewall issue? Are you blocking access by accident?

[argv]

MTU size problem? Try to set it to 1400 bytes

[Deozaan]

Well... this is odd.

I rebooted back into Windows and everything seems to be running along just fine now.

I could have sworn I rebooted my PC yesterday when I was trying to solve this problem.

[Deozaan]

Well so far so good. I don't know what it was, but it seems to be fixed now.

Thanks everyone who helped out.

[steeladept]

Ghosts in the machine again....

[40hz]

You had a JOOTT!

JOOTT

(Pronounced 'Jute') 'Just One Of Those Things'.

Sooner or later every organisation/user will run into problems which are not amenable to logical analysis; technical solutions; or even simple common sense.

JOOTT is used to describe inexplicable computer problems which fix themselves, or are fixed by turning off the machine and restarting, or in more persistent cases, by reinstalling a piece of software.