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Internet connection woes

ShadowDancerShadowDancer When I say, "Why aye, gadgie," in my heart I say, "Och aye, laddie."London, UK
in Zocalo v2.0
Specifically, it seems to be frakked! My connection won't work at all, and windows is reporting that there is no internet access. When I run the diagnose function I get a 'cant communicate with dns server" message. I'm using the standard netgear vmdg280 gateway that I was sent, which I get the impression isn't the most reliable piece of junk on the market.

After doing some searching through the virgin help forums I've discovered I've got a similar problem that [URL="http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Fibre-optic-broadband-cable/Cannot-communicate-with-Primary-DNS-Server/td-p/50936"]this[/URL] person had, altho with some differences



Pinging google gives this:
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C:\Users\Jamie>ping google.co.uk

Pinging google.co.uk [74.125.230.144] with 32 bytes
Reply from 74.125.230.144: bytes=32 time=86ms TTL=5
Reply from 74.125.230.144: bytes=32 time=87ms TTL=5
Reply from 74.125.230.144: bytes=32 time=84ms TTL=5
Reply from 74.125.230.144: bytes=32 time=95ms TTL=5

Ping statistics for 74.125.230.144:
*** Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% l
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
*** Minimum = 84ms, Maximum = 95ms, Average = 88ms
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C:\Users\Jamie>tracert google.co.uk

Tracing route to google.co.uk [74.125.230.144]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

* 1**** 1 ms*** <1 ms*** <1 ms* 172.20.10.1
* 2** 989 ms** 558 ms** 549 ms* 172.30.152.4
* 3** 518 ms** 568 ms** 539 ms* 172.31.154.212
* 4** 428 ms** 519 ms** 519 ms* 217.171.129.125
* 5**** ******** ******** ***** Request timed out.
* 6**** ******** ******** ***** Request timed out.
* 7** 446 ms** 549 ms** 609 ms* 66.249.94.78
* 8*** 79 ms*** 81 ms*** 77 ms* 209.85.251.202
* 9*** 98 ms*** 79 ms*** 89 ms* 74.125.230.144

Trace complete.
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pinging bbc.co.uk gives:
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C:\Users\Jamie>ping bbc.co.uk

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=76ms TTL=116
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=75ms TTL=116
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=82ms TTL=116
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=83ms TTL=116

Ping statistics for 212.58.224.138:
*** Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
*** Minimum = 75ms, Maximum = 83ms, Average = 79ms
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C:\Users\Jamie>tracert 212.58.224.138

Tracing route to virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

* 1*** <1 ms*** <1 ms*** <1 ms* 172.20.10.1
* 2*** 93 ms*** 71 ms*** 67 ms* 172.30.152.4
* 3*** 84 ms*** 83 ms*** 85 ms* 172.31.154.212
* 4*** 74 ms*** 79 ms*** 89 ms* 217.171.129.125
* 5*** 91 ms*** 99 ms*** 99 ms* 195.50.90.197
* 6**** ****** 120 ms** 136 ms* 195.50.90.197
* 7*** 95 ms*** 83 ms*** 75 ms* 195.50.90.162
* 8*** 85 ms*** 79 ms*** 97 ms* 212.58.238.149
* 9*** 87 ms*** 89 ms*** 78 ms* virtual-vip.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138]

Trace complete.
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I've been trying and failing to get anywhere with Virgin's tech support, so I'm guessing the next step is to demand a new router. I've got a thread on their forums as well, but so far no response.
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Any help would be much appreciated!

Comments

  • StingrayStingray Elite Ranger
    Not sure the problem is on your side. The vmdg280 appears to be a cable router/modem. Cable sucked in my area. I switched to DSL and haven't looked back since. Sure it's not as fast, but at least it works 99.9% of the time and down times are minimal.

    Have you tried sniffing your network communication stream with a tool like WireShark to see what's going on?
  • ShadowDancerShadowDancer When I say, "Why aye, gadgie," in my heart I say, "Och aye, laddie." London, UK
    I will give that a go tonight Stingray.

    Because of the weird way our house is wired up, DSL isn't an option either
  • Random ChaosRandom Chaos Actually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
    You seem to be able to reach Firstones - I don't understand what is wrong.

    :p
  • Random ChaosRandom Chaos Actually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
    More seriously, is 172.20.10.1 your router? You're missing half your responses from it? I'd call your cable company and request a new cable modem. When we used one at work, it failed every year and had to be replaced - pieces of junk. When we got a stand alone modem separate from the router and plugged our own router in, we never again had a problem.
  • ShadowDancerShadowDancer When I say, "Why aye, gadgie," in my heart I say, "Och aye, laddie." London, UK
    That's my plan RC. I've had it phoning up their incompetent helpline, got thru once and had two dropped calls, so had to phone back and start at the back of the queue again. We don't have a landline either, so calling them has cost me £10 so far. Not impressed!
  • ShadowDancerShadowDancer When I say, "Why aye, gadgie," in my heart I say, "Och aye, laddie." London, UK
    And as suddenly as it started, it seems to have fixed itself. Bizarre! Oh well!
  • StingrayStingray Elite Ranger
    [QUOTE=ShadowDancer;192330]And as suddenly as it started, it seems to have fixed itself. Bizarre! Oh well![/QUOTE]

    Which could also indicate that the modem was not the source of the problem. Anyway with cable your are SOL. ;)
  • ShadowDancerShadowDancer When I say, "Why aye, gadgie," in my heart I say, "Och aye, laddie." London, UK
    Ok, may have been premature with the declaration of victory. It is still doing it, but only intermittently (once an hour or so) and rebooting the modem/router seems to fix it. Weird
  • Random ChaosRandom Chaos Actually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
    Could be noise in the line. Stick an oscilloscope on it and see if you are getting any spikes beyond which is expected.
  • Entil'ZhaEntil'Zha I see famous people
    Or call your cable Co and see if the signal/noise ratio is unusually high
  • Random ChaosRandom Chaos Actually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
    You mean he should trust his cable company when oscilloscopes are so much cooler? :cool:
  • StingrayStingray Elite Ranger
    My cable operator couldn't get my internet access to work properly and they had the balls to send me offers to get digital TV, internet and phone service over their cruddy line!! Suffice it to say the offers ended up in the trash and as mentioned before I canceled my subscription.
  • ShadowDancerShadowDancer When I say, "Why aye, gadgie," in my heart I say, "Och aye, laddie." London, UK
    Well it seems to be stable for now. I'll keep an eye on it, but I don't want to call them up again because it costs me a fortune on my mobile
  • croxiscroxis I am the walrus
    Out cable company sends us offers in Spanish. We decided to go with DSL as there is only one very inconvenienced placed cable jack in this apartment.
  • Entil'ZhaEntil'Zha I see famous people
    My DSL provider had a bit of a snafu in the CO, one of the ports was bad, and guess who's port it just happened to be? Oh well, was one of the work lines and they fixed it pretty quick.
  • Random ChaosRandom Chaos Actually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
    I've had an occasional bad port on FIOS. The interesting thing is you call them up, a computer picks up, after pushing a couple buttons to tell it what the problem is, it changes the port and all is good. Only once did the human be needed, and it wasn't a huge tree the way I expected: the port flip failed and immediately got a human and a new router.

    I was actually pleasantly surprised at Verizon actually having a phone tree that did something other than annoy :p

    Though I hear that the phone trees for PHONE usage from them are absolutely awful :D
  • Entil'ZhaEntil'Zha I see famous people
    i was a little annoyed as i had a port fail last year too, but it was on one of the commercial lines, not the residential line.

    The only thing that was really a pain about it was that I needed that line up and running to do PCI Compliance on the new credit card terminal. the Credit card industry is pretty gung how about security, so I maintain a separate DSL line that does nothing but process Credit cards. It adds a bit to my processing charges, (which are already high) but if it means that I won't be the source of a data leak... then it's good
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