Dial-up can't find host

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Magyar
  • Start date Start date
J

John Magyar

My previously working Earthlink dial-up connection just
stopped working. I've made numerous tests and can't locate
the problem. I describe the case as follows:

1) Two machines both running win2k, old machine still
works fine on the same line with the same ISP as the new
one that failed.

2) The problem machine connects but Outlook says it can't
find the POP host, and Explorer can't load a page.

3) I checked the usual things, pop and smtp addresses,
account name, etc. Have also re-loaded 2 generations of
Ghost images of the operating system on which things
seemed to all work. No fix. The Ghost images were only a
day old, so I suppose they could all be corrupted.

4) I can ping my ISP's DNS server IP address from the DOS
command line and it responds ok, as do other IP addresses
I've tried. However, if I ping the corresponding domain
names I just get "host not found". I tried the same
exercise on the working machine and verified that they all
respond with no errors.

I'm concluding that the modem hardware is ok, and maybe
all my operating system copies are corrupted. These have
been made while I have been trying to build up the new
machine and don't have much of a track record. I hate to
rebuild from scratch. Any suggestions would be valued.

I thought getting a new computer was supposed to be fun.

Thanks, John
 
This is a DNS issue. Start by clearing your cache. From the command line
type IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS

If that doesn't get results, take a look for any invalid entries in your
HOSTS file. Find it in you systemroot\system32\drivers\etc folder.
 
Thanks, but no luck. Didn't find any entries in HOST
except 'localhost' which does answer a ping. I also tried
a download called winsockXPfix.exe, from
members.shaw.ca/techcd. It didn't work either. Also tried
entering data into HOST myself, but don't understand just
what is needed. The sample file didn't tell me enough, so
I probably got it wrong, didn't work. Any other ideas?

Thanks,
John
 
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