RANTS: Time Warner DNS Woes

I was talking with someone last week about how he was having problems with internet connectivity. His TW cable modem was working, the router was working and the computers all were working fine. Only thing was that the browsers were not serving up web pages. He was telling me how he figured out that TWs DNS servers were not working properly. I told him that I wasn't experiencing any of the those problems.

I spoke too soon. Starting yesterday, I had the exact same symptoms. The fix is to change your router's (or computer's) DNS servers. Open DNS seems to be the easiest solution. Here are the instructions:

https://www.opendns.com/start

A quick search shows that Time Warner has had this problem for some time now and many people are plagued by it. When will they realize it and deal with it?

TIPS & TRICKS: Vista WiFi Connectivity Problems

Found this article

http://windowssecrets.com/comp/081211#story1

that has a simple write up on why so many Vista users are having trouble with wireless connectivity. From the description of the fix listed here,:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233/en-us

this problem extends to wired connections as well. Remember that editing the registry could irreparably harm your computer. Please be careful and ask a qualified professional (or at least someone who knows what they are doing) for help.

Hope this helps someone. Good luck and happy computing.

RANTS: Windows Vista Wireless Connection

I came across a Gateway notebook running Windows Vista, which has trouble connecting to some access points (it worked on some but not others). I wish I could say that this was specific to this machine, but it seems to be a widespread Vista problem. There are different theories as to the cause, but the symptoms are the same:

1. Windows shows that the internal wireless card is connected to the wireless network.
2. But, machine doesn't receive and IP address.
3. Instead it gets an autoconfigured address beginning with 169.x.x.x.
4. The machine shows its access as "Local only"

I've tried all kinds of resets, including ARP cache, TCP/IP stack, DNS flush, and IP renew. I've also tried disabling IPv6 and the registry hacks documented by Microsoft here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233

and configuration settings, also documented by Microsoft here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928152

A simple search of Vista wireless problems documents the countless number of people having this issue. The machine does connect with other access points, but the one where I need it to work is failing. How long do we need to wait for a fix?

Update: Just came across a new suggestion: disable IPv6.