Unable to access certain web pages

[roach]

Hi,
I had to reset my router 24 hrs ago and now find a new problem which I hope someone can help with. I am using IE and now find I can not access some sites that used to work fine 24hrs ago, hotmail and national lottery to name but two. Almost all other sites are fine. I have tried firefox and have the same problem with that. I have tried the usual, deleting all temp files etc. I would appreciate any suggestions?

[roach]

Also meant to say this is the same on 3 laptops and a desktop all connected through the same router

[Saab Dastard]

Roach,

Can you ping the websites you are having a problem with?

SD

[roach]

Can ping hotmail but have also found unable to access microsoft or windows update

[mdc]

Is this a DNS issue? Can you resolve the DNS names correctly?
I assuming you have your router configured to be a DHCP server and hand out IP addresses and relavent DNS details, did you make any changes?
With NTL/Virgin their DNS servers seem to be increasingly broken (google, hotmail, ebay and BBC seem to be the most frequently broken) and I've changed to manually entering alternative DNS servers in my routers DHCP settings.
Link to nslookup doc (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/nslookup.mspx?mfr=true) if your not familiar with it's use.

[roach]

Thanks for the reply but am unable to access any microsoft sites! Have found that my old dial up modem allows access to all sites though.

[Saab Dastard]

What ISP are you with?

If you can access some websites but not others, it sounds as if your router settings for DNS are OK, but the problem is either with your hosts file or with your ISP.

Check the hosts file for contamination: C\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts - note no extension. It should have no entries ither than 127.0.0.1 = localhost, apart from comment lines.

Assuming that is clear, run ipconfig/displaydns and save it for reference. Now ping www.microsoft.com - you should see:

Pinging lb1.www.ms.akadns.net [207.46.193.254] with 32 bytes of data:

Although you won't get a response.

If you don't resolve the name to the IP address it is a DNS problem. If it resolves it incorrectly, try running ipconfig/flushdns and trying again.

SD

[mdc]

SD, since the original poster (Roach) said it affects 4 machines (3 laptops and a desktop) I doubt it's a host file issue.

Hence my suggestion of a DNS issue, NTL regular fails to resolve google and ebay although other sites resolve correctly.

Roach try editing the DNS settings on your router and defining 193.155.207.61
as a DNS server, then reboot the router and the affected machines.

[Saab Dastard]

since the original poster (Roach) said it affects 4 machines (3 laptops and a desktop) I doubt it's a host file issue.

Well my thought was that if the 4 PCs have been infected by the same malware (entirely plausible), then they would all have similar symptoms.

SD

[roach]

Thanks for the informed responses. As always when I have a problem there is someone out there who can suggest a solution. This time all is back to normal but I do not know why. I noticed some activity on my router log...auto resetting and now all sites are working. Not a malaware problem. If things deteriorate I'll post again. Once again thanks for taking the trouble to post.