Cannot communicate to primary DNS server

hello, i am going to break my laptop if i don't find a solution...
I have a laptop connecting wirelessly to the internet. i used to have XP (same router, ip adress, dns servers, same everything) and it was working excellent, until i got vista. i connect to the internet and after some time i realise i cannot browse (by the way my torrent s/w works fine even then!), i can't even go to the http://192.168..... of my router. however somethimes i see the green globe in the bottom right, sometimes i don't. when i click on diagnose and repair sometimes says no problem found, other times it says "cannot communicate to primary dns server ", others it says cannot communicate to www.microsoft.com (i.p. adress number) and so on.. the problem resolves only when i finally decide to get up, manually switch off and on my router a couple of times and wait for 3-4 minutes. please help...it's driving me crazy

 

really? no ideas on this one?

 

Give them time Clarabelle...

Personally I have no experience with vista but if you know how I'd start by pinging your router, with XP you'd go to a command prompt and type

ping 192.168.0.1 (I'm guessing the 0.1 part)

if that's successful then try

ping 64.233.187.99 (that's google.com)

if that's successfull try

ping google.com

if that's successfull then your internet connection should work, if pinging the router fails then do a reset, there should be a pinhole reset switch somewhere (you may need to reconfigure the router afterwards so make sure you can hardwire into it rather than go wireless)

If pinging google's IP address fails then perhaps you have a problem with your internet connection.

If pinging google.com fails, verify your DNS server addresses, you can even set those in your router and use 192.168.0.1 (again guessing the 0.1 part) as the DNS on your laptop.

That's about as far as I can assist but others will surely come along if you give them time.

 

i'm so sorry if i sound impatient wildfire, it's just that i really need to fix this because i can't work anymore
i did the pinging thing, all is well 0%data lost, but i suppose it doesn't really say anything since i do have my internet connection on at the moment.
well, i'll be waiting for any advice...

 

wildfire's suggestion was a good place to start, but you have to do it when you are in the faulty state. The ping tests will tell us where the problem is occuring (at the PC, internal network, router, or external network)

I'd add another PING to try if all the others fail:
ping 127.0.0.1

Also try this:
tracert 64.233.187.99
tracert 64.233.187.99 > c:\tracert.txt

The first version of tracert will output to the screen. The second outputs to a file on the root of your c:\ drive. You can use that to post back your results.

Also, what anti-virus software are you using? Can you give us the make and model of your router.

 

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6001]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.


C:\Users\clarabelle>ping 64.233.187.99

Pinging 64.233.187.99 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=996ms TTL=242
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=1352ms TTL=242
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=1207ms TTL=242
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=942ms TTL=242

Ping statistics for 64.233.187.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 942ms, Maximum = 1352ms, Average = 1124ms

C:\Users\clarabelle>ping 192.168.2.1

Pinging 192.168.2.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.2.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 1ms

C:\Users\clarabelle>ping google.com

Pinging google.com [209.85.171.99] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 209.85.171.99: bytes=32 time=869ms TTL=237
Reply from 209.85.171.99: bytes=32 time=1418ms TTL=237
Reply from 209.85.171.99: bytes=32 time=1539ms TTL=237
Reply from 209.85.171.99: bytes=32 time=1434ms TTL=237

Ping statistics for 209.85.171.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 869ms, Maximum = 1539ms, Average = 1315ms

C:\Users\clarabelle>ping 127.0.0.1

Pinging 127.0.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 127.0.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

C:\Users\clarabelle>tracert 64.233.187.99

Tracing route to jc-in-f99.google.com [64.233.187.99]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms . [192.168.2.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 1026 ms 1217 ms 61 ms vlan35-k1.otenet.net [62.103.14.190]
4 654 ms 28 ms 616 ms athe7609k1-athe6509k1.otenet.net [83.235.5.1]
5 22 ms 29 ms 24 ms gig1-0-0-cr04-otenet.ath.OTEGlobe.net [62.75.3.9
]
6 577 ms 130 ms 63 ms gig5-0-0-cr01.fra.OTEGlobe.net [62.75.4.150]
7 373 ms 649 ms 79 ms de-cix20.net.google.com [80.81.193.108]
8 705 ms 682 ms 129 ms 209.85.255.176
9 636 ms 1059 ms 240 ms 209.85.248.94
10 270 ms 148 ms 788 ms 209.85.251.89
11 785 ms 163 ms 166 ms 72.14.238.138
12 363 ms 688 ms 715 ms 66.249.95.149
13 673 ms 173 ms 214 ms 216.239.47.1
14 166 ms 174 ms 165 ms 216.239.49.222
15 175 ms 688 ms 1109 ms jc-in-f99.google.com [64.233.187.99]

Trace complete.

i use avast antivirus and a philips cga 5722 wireless...i know the problem is with vista. i used to have a toshiba laptop with xp on and everything, was exactly the same (router, dns, subnet eveyrthing) and now with i got this to0shiba (again) with vista on and it's making me sad...please help...

 

We need to see what happens with those tests when the connection is not working!

 

my connection was not working when i ran them...honestly....
the thing is when the problem i describe occurs utorrent, lime wire and so on work just fine but the brower (mozilla) says "page not found" and outlook can't connect either.
i know it's weird.I looked it up almost everywhere and there others having the same problem...some said that it's something with the sleep mode and so i should switch off that option for the network adapters, worked for a day, broken again!

 

okay it just happened again and rerun the pings, results were different, maybe the other time by the time i did the pings, the problem was resolved and i didn't notice..


Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6001]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\clarabelle>ping 64.233.187.99

Pinging 64.233.187.99 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.2.1: Destination net unreachable.
Reply from 192.168.2.1: Destination net unreachable.
Reply from 192.168.2.1: Destination net unreachable.
Reply from 192.168.2.1: Destination net unreachable.

Ping statistics for 64.233.187.99:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

C:\Users\clarabelle>ping 192.168.2.1

Pinging 192.168.2.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.2.1: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.2.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 3ms, Average = 1ms

C:\Users\clarabelle>ping google.com
Ping request could not find host google.com. Please check the name and try again
.

C:\Users\clarabelle>ping 127.0.0.1

Pinging 127.0.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 127.0.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

C:\Users\clarabelle>tracert 64.233.187.99

Tracing route to 64.233.187.99 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 2 ms 2 ms 1 ms 192.168.2.1
2 192.168.2.1 reports: Destination net unreachable.

Trace complete.


C:\Users\clarabelle>

 

Both

and this

Show that the problem is at the router. The network between you PC and the router seem to be working fine. Also as the router is reporting the problem, it must be working to some extent.

Therefore, it looks like the problem is your internet connection. I expect restarting your router is forcing a restart of the connection to your ISP.

What is the make and model of your router? Routers often have diagnostics software that can be used to try and work out what is happening on the WAN link.

Also, how is your router connected to your broadband connection? Is it connected directly into your telecoms provider's socket, or do you use an extension cable?