I would prefer you to work through some of the symptoms first, rather
than just "bailing and cheating"
You really should restore the
automated settings, as otherwise, you'll be forever fixing this
over and over again. (I know, because I've tried to use static
settings before, and every time the ISP burps, I end up fixing
something. It sucks as a way to run an Internet connection. And less
technical people may not appreciate having to go through a complicated
procedure just to make their networking work every second day. DHCP
automation is there for a reason.)
*******
If you go to the Control Panels, then Network Connections, you'll see
icons for various networking options. I have one called "Local Area Connection"
and that one connects to my router and ADSL modem. I have a second
called "Dialup Networking" which I added just yesterday, and that
one is less interesting to me right now, as my ADSL is working
today.
If I right click on the one I'm using at the moment, then do
"Properties", I can see a number of protocol stack items. The top one
is "Client for Microsoft Networks". The bottom one is "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)"
and that is the one you want. Click it and use the "Properties" button
just below it.
If you're using DHCP, the panel will say "Obtain an IP address automatically",
as well as "Obtain DNS server address automatically". Those pieces of info
come from my router via DHCP (the router gets them via DHCP from the ISP)..
I can also manually enter the information, which would result in a static
private address for my computer. For the DNS address, any DNS server would do.
For example, Google offers a DNS server. One address is 8.8.8.8. You
could enter that as the "DNS Server".
http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/
http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using.html
But as I indicated earlier, I first would want to start with symptoms.
For example, if I do nslookup on my own machine, this is what it shows.
*******
C:\Documents and Settings\John Doe> nslookupwww.altavista.com
*** Can't find server name for address 192.168.1.1: Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Server: UnKnown
Address: 192.168.1.1
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: avatw.search.a00.yahoodns.net
Address: 72.30.186.25
Aliases:
www.altavista.com
*******
The reason that happens, is my computer uses my four port router to
resolve (translate) the address. The router address of 192.168.1.1 is
private and can't be translated. It ends up as "UnKnown". Then, the
translation process still works. If you set it up statically, like
by plugging in 8.8.8.8 as the DNS server in the Networking setup,
then the "Server" field might mention Google.
The fact I can translate an address, the "72.30.186.25" tells you the
DNS translation succeeded. So in this case, I know my DNS path, no matter
how tortured it is, is working. If the "nslookup" command fails
to produce a translation, then the DNS servers could be down. That
happens on my ISP occasionally. But I notice they're getting better
at it. At one time, they'd kill *both* of the DNS servers offered,
within the same five minutes, while doing maintenance on them. They
could be disabling one of the two servers as I'm typing this, and
I wouldn't notice. It is only when all DNS servers passed down by
the ISP have disappeared, that there would be translation trouble.
If I were to permanently use 8.8.8.8 Google translation, if Google
ever had an outage, I'd have to find another server to use. And when
you can't do web browsing because the DNS is busted, it is pretty
hard to come up with another server. So if you're going to
meddle manually with the network setup, at least set aside some known
DNS server alternatives that will be working when your primary choice
is not.
If you choose to set up a static IP address, it should be from the
same subnet as the ones coming from your DHCP server setup. For
example, if I set my router to deal 192.168.1.100 through 103 as
local DHCP addresses, I could always try 192.168.1.104 as a static address
for the computer that is no longer using DHCP. That is a private
address (192.168.x.x is private), but the value chosen won't bump into
any other of my computers connected to the same router.
*******
If you're in the Command Prompt (DOS) window, and do
ipconfig /?
you'll see there are some other options under your control.
For example, "ipconfig /flushdns" would presumably get rid of
any cached DNS translations held within your computer. (Of course,
you'd get the same effect by rebooting.) The /release and
/renew are for "DHCP leases". When you connect through the DHCP
chain, the length of your tenure is limited by the lease period,
which is probably measured in days. If you ever suspect a DHCP
problem, you could try "ipconfig /release" followed by
"ipconfig /renew" and what could result from that, is
a renewal of your DHCP settings if they happened to be
screwed up. I haven't had to use that in some time now,
so can't remember a set of symptoms to look for. I turn off
my equipment often enough, to not run into any limits.
Paul- Hide quoted text -
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