Only a few websites won't load...wtf?

[Rijuhn]

About a week ago a few of my favorite websites stopped loading for me. I thought the websites were down at first but they work for all of my friends. I've done everything from allowing all cookies, setting my options to the lowest they can be, reseting my router, disabling my firewall and I still can't get these websites to load.

I'm totally lost as to why these websites refuse to load for me. My best guess is that somehow my ISP is blocking access to the sites, or my router is doing something to block access, or just maybe those websites have blocked my ISP for one reason or another. My sister and my dad also cannot gain access to the above mentioned websites, so it leads me to believe it is within the router or ISP.

The websites I'm talking about are:

http://www.planetgamecube.com

http://www.desync.com

I can load http://www.hotmail.com but I can't log into the service successfully. It just gives me cannot be displayed error when I hit enter after entering my information.

Also Desync.com streams anime on winamp TV (this is how I learned of Love Hina, Last Exile, and a few other animes) and the TV streams appear normally on Winamp TV but when I try to load them I always get buffering 0%.

I would post this on Desync.com but it won't load, so you see my delima. If anyone knows WTF is going on please let me know because I'm about to smash my computer.

Also, I'm not sure if this is related, but my dad recently installed a wireless PCI card on my mothers 150 MHz Pentium computer. My mom's computer uses a different PCI card that the other 4 computers though. The 4 of us have D-Link and my mom has Motorolla(sp?), but I don't see how that could make a few websites and 3 anime streams from Winamp TV not load properly for me.

[linkofzelda1]

Sounds like you have some sort of spyware. Download Ad-Aware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/) or SpyBot (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html) and run a test. That should solve the problem.

[Rijuhn]

Hehe, forgot to mention that. I've done that twice and they found nothing. I also did a big Windows Update AFTER they stopped working and that still didn't help.

[linkofzelda1]

Hmm. I'm stumped then. Maybe a windows guru like Atma or someone can help more than I can. :shrug:

[goKi]

Hmm, a friend of mine is having the same problem with hotmail, and using a d-link modem...

[ZTC]

Also, I'm not sure if this is related, but my dad recently installed a wireless PCI card on my mothers 150 MHz Pentium computer. My mom's computer uses a different PCI card that the other 4 computers though. The 4 of us have D-Link and my mom has Motorolla(sp?), but I don't see how that could make a few websites and 3 anime streams from Winamp TV not load properly for me.

it might be a compatibaly problem with the new wireless adapter and the old P1 comp,
if the pc uses a PCI 2.0 specification and the adapter uses the 2.1 specification, you'd definitely run into some odd problems :odd: , if not, you've got me stumped :(

[AtmaWeapon]

Sounds to me like it could be a DNS issue.

Try pinging the websites and see what you get. This is what I did and what I got:

C:\Documents and Settings\AtmaWeapon>ping www.planetgamecube.com

Pinging planetgamecube.com [64.5.35.235] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 64.5.35.235: bytes=32 time=2052ms TTL=52
Reply from 64.5.35.235: bytes=32 time=64ms TTL=52
Reply from 64.5.35.235: bytes=32 time=64ms TTL=52
Reply from 64.5.35.235: bytes=32 time=66ms TTL=52

Ping statistics for 64.5.35.235:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 64ms, Maximum = 2052ms, Average = 561ms

If you get something more like "Ping request could not find host www.planetgamecube.com" but when you try the IP everything works fine, you are experiencing a DNS issue. Just to be safe, try a nslookup. A good answer looks like:


C:\Documents and Settings\AtmaWeapon>nslookup www.planetgamecube.com
Server: ns1.intermediatn.net
Address: 24.158.96.10

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: planetgamecube.com
Address: 64.5.35.235
Aliases: www.planetgamecube.com

If when you run this, you are told "<your DNS server> can't find www.planetgamecube.com: Nonexistant domain", then it's getting more likely you have a DNS issue.

One last test: try this link (http://64.5.35.235/), it goes to planetgamecube by IP instead of by URL. If the page loads, you have a DNS issue and do as the next paragraph says. If it does not load, you cannot resolve the IP at all and there's some kind of connectivity issue, skip the next paragraph.

Make sure your DNS settings are what your ISP says they should be, then call them and tell them you are having issues resolving some server IPs and you think it is a DNS issue. They'll be glad to tell you that they are having no problems with DNS and it is your imagination. While on the phone, they will check the sites you tell them and whether or not they load they will tell you it is working perfectly. If there is indeed a DNS problem, they will fix it and pretend like it never happened.

If pinging via IP or going directly to the IP isn't working, power down all network devices (including the computers), remove the new wireless computer from the network, then after waiting a good 5 minutes for a power cycle bring all computers and network devices back up. Test the sites. If they still don't work, repeat, but this time only have one computer turned on. Test each computer by itself. If you are going through a router, try connecting directly to the modem once. If you are still not resolving the sites with each computer, I have no idea what the devil is going on because by now you have isolated everything that should be causing the problem.

*edit* I'm running XP Pro, if you are running anything but XP Pro or Win2k I can't guarantee you'll have nslookup.


Hmm. I'm stumped then. Maybe a windows guru like Atma or someone can help more than I canLOL I just read that, I'm flattered. This isn't so much a Windows guru problem; it's more of a "something is broken but I don't know what it is" problem, so my approach was more like the scientific method: eliminate dependent variables until you find the problem.

[Rijuhn]

AtmaWeapon:


When I pinged I got "Request timed out" 3 times before the window closes.

When I did nslookup everything was fine. I got the same Non-Authoritative answer that you got.

When I get a chance later today, and after my dad has allowed it, I'll powerdown the whole network and unplug my mom's computer and try what you said. But do I have to physically have to remove the card from my mothers computer or is unpluging it good enough?


The Cyborg:

To be honest with you I have no clue about 2.0 or 2.1 specifications. This sounds like it could be part of the problem though. I do know my mom's old Pentium I doesn't have USB or PS2 ports. She has to use a serial mouse or an adapter on a more recent one to use a mouse, that much I know.

I hope this information helps guys.

[AtmaWeapon]

OK now we're getting somewhere, DNS is working but you can't ping the site. Did you try pinging by IP or going to the link by IP?

Unplugging the card should be sufficient, you just want to make sure that particular computer is not on the network so if the difficulties suddenly go away you know it's an issue with that computer. I'm saying to power cycle everything because I once thought that wasn't important until I spent an hour connecting my router because my cable modem wanted me to power cycle it, plug the modem in first, THEN the router, THEN the computer. Any other order didn't work, and if I didn't power cycle for at least 3 minutes even that order didn't work. I'm glad I dumped that router.

My opinion is I don't think the PCI specification should have anything to do with it, but you don't work in IT for long before you figure out you are an idiot if you eliminate anything without testing it first.

[Sylvan_Wizard]

You might also want to check your hosts file. Also, it could be a spyware issue. Try another browser (mozilla.org)?

[Radium]

I've been having trouble accessing a few sites lately as well, maybe a major backbone has got arthritus. I blame Microsoft.

The sites have been going off and online...

www.microsoft.com
www.msn.com
(msn messenger)
www.ve3d.com did the other day... and some others that I dont remember.

[Rijuhn]

okay, everything works now. Want to know how? My dad went over and switched off the power to the surge protector that the router and modem were connected to. Let it sit for 10 seconds and flipped it back on. Repaired my wireless connection and everything works now. Praise God!

[AtmaWeapon]

The power cycle is almost magic because it seems to be able to repair almost any network issue. Glad to hear you got it fixed. :)

[Rijuhn]

What amazes me is that I would get such a specific error that seems to block certain IPs and how easily it was to fix. Computers bugs will forever baffle me.