Call for Tech Assistance

[Nyamaza]

Jarylan and I are having trouble with out net connection recently. As this is frankly the biggest collection of tech minded people I know (probably including work, I'll be checking with the rest of IS tomorrow), I decided to check if anyone here had any ideas.

Our DSL modem seems to be having a weird issue. Specifically, it 1) has its own DNS cache (not too odd/problematic there), and 2) redirects to itself (192.168.1.254) whenever it cannot get to a page, in case you need to change your login info. The problem comes in in that it's storing that IP address in the DNS cache for the URL supplied.


So if I lose net access, and AIM tries to reconnect, oscar.aol.com will be mapped to the modem's IP address. And thus not work well.

The simple, but very non-permanent fix is to unplug the modem for 10 seconds, flush the dns on the computer, and then plug the modem back in. Once we re-sinc, we're good. but what I'd like to find is some way to disable the modem's dns caching. But there doesn't seem to be any way to do this.

Complicating the matter, this modem is actually the warranty replacement of the one we got when we moved here. We're having a more general connectivity issue (we've eliminated it down to bad wiring), that will cause temporary signal loss in modem 1) Always at least twice a day, some days as often as 30 times. No set times for the outages, or other such pattens, other then perhaps high usage makes it more likely. The disconnects also seemed to tend to come in groups, where we'd be fine all day, then get 5 disconnects in an hour

The new modem seems to have improved that situation (disconnects are much more rare), but with it we'll noticed at times getting massive ping loss, round about 10% or so. Most of the time, we're down at around .2%

So the new modem seems to handle signal loss better, in that it doesn't disconnect, but is more prone to letting the pings drop in the first place. AND the new modem has this DNS issue, the old one didn't.

And we need to send them one back, soonish

At this point we've had the modem replaced, changed all the out of wall wires (modem to wall), confirmed the ping loss (and likely source of connection loss) is between the modem and its gateway, and according to my roommate got a new line droped from the pole (neither he nor I watched the tech do this, but they WERE fiddling out there for over 2 hours, so it'd be doubtful they wouldn't have gotten a new line put in in that time. So in wall wiring is about the only thing left, though only the elimination process really shows. Getting the wiring in the wall replaced will take a while, so the bad wiring issue isn't going to go away anytime in the close close future. hence why handling the signal degredation is important.

The modem is a Netopia 2241N. If anyone knows hwo to disable the DNS caching on this modem, orknows of any other way to fix our issue, I'm ALL ears.

[DetailBear]

In your Software Users Guide, check Chapter 5. Go to Troubleshoot section, then Expert Mode, then Diagnosis.

If anything fails, you can report it to the DSL company. If not, then the System Log may have some clues.

Most of the forum help I find is for problems connecting another hub or switch into the modem/router.