Bizarre internet problem

I am experiencing a very odd problem which I'm really struggling to solve.

To summerise - My internet connection seems largely fine however the are certain websites/webpages which refuse to load up. It just says waiting to connect before eventually coming up with the same message you'd get when you have no internet connection. 90% of websites are fine but the 10% includes some websites i need to get on which is rather frustrating! There seems to be no correlation between the type of sites that wont work. Some examples are Microsoft Corporation , Car Insurance, Home Insurance, Travel Insurance & Credit Cards from Tesco Finance & Insurance , Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test to name just a few...

I don't believe it's actually a computer problem as my laptop (which is new) cant connect to these sites either through my home wireless network but if i connect to the internet through a friends wireless internet the sites load no problem!

I dont believe its a firewall problem or anything like that as i've tried diabling them and pretty much everything else i could think of.

I had a 45 minute phone conversation with BT who ran tests on my line and checked my account and couldn't see why i was having the problem - they couldn't access my computer remotely though as the site they linked me to wouldn't open through my pc connection! Basically they told me they couldnt help and to contact my computers manufacturer (even though i think its obviously not the source of the problem?)

I'm running internet through a Belkin router with BT as my ISP. Im running internet explorer, firefox, safari and opera browsers so its not a browser problem.

Another problem, maybe connected, maybe not - My windows media player won't import any album info anymore. Im guessing its because the internet wont connect to the site that wmp gets its album info from but thought id throw it in just in case it's not that causing the problem.

May be worth adding that both problems have only started about a month or 2 ago. Before that everything worked fine.

I think that covers most things about the problem, If anyone could offer any advice it'd be appreciated as I'm not sure where to turn next...

Hi Ivydrive, and welcome to the forums.

For what you describe, it's a router's problem. Maybe you did a firmware update? Maybe it did it on it's own? Or maybe the latests updates for your browsers anr/or network card need some sort of re-configuration in your router. What I would do is bypass the router by connecting one of your computers straight to your BT modem and test. If the problem is still there, ask a friend to come by your house with a laptop and connect also stright to your modem (no router). If the problem persist, change ISP. If it was solves, restart your router and start configuring it all over again but checking your connection every ste of the way.

Cheers,

Thank you for the welcome.

I've browsed the forums previously and they look very helpful - on note, thank you for your reply.

Before i ring Belkin and start asking them to fiddle with my modem settings, I'm thinking that perhaps it could be a network card problem. It would tie in quite well come to think of it with when i fitted a new one. Basically a couple months ago my internet stopped working and i was told by belkin that it was a router problem but that my computers network card had failed and i needed to contact my PC's manufacturer.

Rather than mess around with that i decided to take my Belkin Wirelss Network card Belkin : Wireless G Desktop Card out of my old pc and plug it into a free place on this pc just to get internet back - it seemed to work OK but i never installed anything myself onto the pc (the pc downloaded the stuff itself i believe) and i never removed the old card (i couldn't actually see it anyway but im not all that knowledgable about it all so have probably overlooked it.

Is it likely that this is the cause of my problems and if so, how would i go about fixing it? Would i need a new or different network card - seeing as im using a wireless network card yet running it on the pc the routers plugged into?
will there be a software update for it somewhere? could it be clashing with my old network card still in the pc somehow? Or should i just ring Belkin and get them to check the router first?

Sorry for my naivety - Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

Ive just done a bit more research and think it could be that Vista doesn't support my slightly outdated network card so i think i'll pop out tomorrow and buy a new one to try.

Any other advice is still appreciated.

What you say makes sense. If you have a conflict either with the two adaptors or Vista with an old adaptor, that could be your conflict. Tell me tomorrow what happens. Before installing the new one, make sure both old adaptors are removed from your system and that none shows in your network adaptors in vista. If they do, disable them and run CCleaner to make sure there's no trae of them in the registry... then proceed to install the new one.

I have been having same issue and it started when I installed SP2. It shows I have internet connection but some sites won't load and it lasts from 15 seconds to a minute normally. It also effects both IE8 and Firefox and happens with or without my router in the mix as I have tested all configs to locate the problem.

What gets me is I thought it was my router failing so I bought a new one and issue remains and like I said this started with SP2.

*sigh* Just been out and bought a new Network card, uninstalled the others, installed this new one and i still have the same problem No improvement at all.
I'll try giving Belkin a ring in a minute but my gut feeling is saying that they wont be able to help but you never know.
My computer forever seems to be updating itself so im not sure when it upgraded to SP2 but it may well be that on my pc as well.

Hey Ivydrive,

Check this out first (thanks to whs for the link), even before reading the rest of my brilliantly informative and witty post: http://www.troublefixers.com/fix-can-not-display-web-page-trouble-in-4-easy-steps/

Easy to check to see if you have SP2 installed. Go to the 'Programs and Features' window of the Control Panel, and look over to the left (usually blue) column under 'Tasks.' There you'll find 'view installed updates'. Click on it. Up will come a window of all your Window's updates and some others. Sort by date and look around the end of May, beginning of June '09 for the SP. It will read "Service Pack for Microsoft Windows".

That much is easy. Now, join the club. I have been having weird internet connectivity problems since that update as well, though I am not at all sure they are related to that update, rather than the ton or so other updates that have been installed in the last few months.

IE alone seems affected in my case, though that may be because of the websites involved. I should note also that I have turned off Kaspersky's 'Scan Encrypted Connections' option, which had no positive effect on IE, but made me much less temperamental while surfing. Also I have rolled back the update to IE from 8 to 7. Also no help. My two slower machines (both dual core, ~2GHz, 32-bit machines) take an inordinate time (over 60 sec) to make their initial connections and sometimes the IE window itself lies hidden for 15-45 seconds (during which time Process Explorer shows no activity at all for IE). Both seem to work fine after this long connection though. For the record, I note absolutely no slowing of file exchange between the machines on my network, this is entirely an internet problem. I have fixed my problem (apparently) by going to Firefox for the web on these machines. Also for the record, no similar problem was noted for my faster, 64-bit machine, which has the same routers and modems between it and the internet that the slower machines have. I don't think this problem is related to CPU strength or speed though.

Hang in there. Hope you can figure something out, but this is a brainy lot here on vistax64, given time and info.

Thanks for the replies! I have finally got it fixed (fingers crossed it stays fixed!)

Ive fiddled with the DNS addresses with the help of Belkin support and then downloaded a program called DR TCP - DRTCP: How do I use it and what are all these settings? Tweaking FAQ - dslreports.com
and to my amazement it actually worked!

If anyone else is having problems perhaps they could try running this program?

Could anyone in the know explain how this programs helped get it working again and how it works - Im just curious to learn more than anything

Many thanks!

Problem may well be fixed now but im getting really slow internet speeds now Any ideas? If i go on my router setup page in the browser it shows a speed of 3488 kbps but speedtest.net is as below...