I have a very strange situation with my ADSL home connection,

• I can send emails but can't recieve any from my POP3/SMTP email accounts, using outlook express.
• I can browse to some domains (10% maximum) only, i can connect to almost all the google and related domains like gmail, google, adsense, blogger, etc. but i can't connect to msn or yahoo, and most important to ASTAHOST.
• I can upload and download files using my ftp client.
• Ping and Tracert commands work almost 100%.

I have a Zyxel Prestige 630-11, it is an USB ADSL modem that works pefect for the last 3 years and 10 days ago stops working fine. Last sunday my ISP tech support check it and seems that it is perfect, then this person replaces it with a router to check the connection and every thing works perfect, as it was with my modem.

I'm not and expert in this area but I guess that maybe this problem is related with the DNS servers or with a firewall or a proxy but i don't use any.

Best regards,

Looks like your DNS is partially down. When the ISP tech support replace your modem with a router, you said everything works perfect. Meaning it can access those sites that you claimed you can't earlier? If so, It seems to be more of the problem from your pc side.

Assuming you're running WinXP, try check if the DNS Client service is running (Control Panel\Administrative Tools\Services). Then goto -> C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc. Open the "hosts" file with notepad. The default entries there should be

If there's anything else after localhost like this

it will cause yahoo and google not working. You can temporarily remove it. Make a backup copy just in case.

Then check your firewall. Try to disable it for the mean time and see if it helps. Some firewall are known to be playing too smart.

Preferably you restart the pc after every changes just to be sure.

If it still doesn't work, then it's quite bad. Not sure if others have ideas i'ven't covered here. Worse case, you might need to try a fresh installed windows just to be sure. The last thing to be changed is your modem.

Good luck

Yes, everything works fine with the router and i can access all the sites that i cant access with my modem. Inside my hosts file i have the default entry and some others entries disabled:

I don't use Windows XP i still use Windows 2000 Pro sorry for not to said it, tell me, the DNS client service comes with Windows 2000??? right now i don't remember and i cant check it because i'm not in my machine, later when i'm at home i gonna check it.

So, i think that this will be the right time to upgrade to Windows XP, truely i don't wnat to do it because i have a lot of software installed that i don't want to loose, but, if it is the solution well in that case i must do it.

Thanks for your help.

Best regards,

Yes, Win2k also has DNS Client.


WinXP is actually based on the same kernel as Win2k with added features and much more user friendly. If you're happy with Win2k, plus you don't need the built in firewall, don't play directx game on it, you'll be fine. No need to upgrade.

How about firewall? Do you have 3rd party firewall installed?

I once had a more serious problem, something to do with TCP connection. Can't access internet at all. Later found a tool call winsockXPfix.exe. Well, it did the job. Here is another similar tool for win2k http://www.cexx.org/lspfix.htm. You might want to give that a try as well.

Thanks falutyl.ee, yesterday i review the services management console of my pc and i verify that the DNS client exists also in Win2k and with your information i decide to not upgrade my OS for now, also, as i said before i don't have installed any firewall or proxy on my pc.

Now, what you say about your TCP connection i'm almost sure that my problem is very similar as yours, i just download the utilities you mention, after i went home i will install them on my pc and i hope that they do the job.

Maybe in a couple of hours i will edit this post If every thing woks fine as i hope.

Best regards,

Let's just cross our finger and good luck

There is a quick way to find out if there is someting wrong with the DNS(-settings). If you can't access a website by entering it's name (eg. http://www.astahost.com) then you should try to connect to it using it's public IP adres (for astahost that is http://216.240.134.213 ).
You can find such adresses by ping'ing to the webserver (ping www.astahost.com).
yahoo.com: 87.248.113.14
msn.com: 65.54.152.126

Note that sometimes these adresses aren't fixed (like your own public IP adress), so it's a good idea to recheck it before you test it.


ps. if there is a problem with the DNS, then the ping command won't return an adress if it hasn't been cached by the DNS server.

Well sadly i still have problems and i'm not be able to get my connection to work.

After i run the lspfix tool i got more problems and the LSP's stack dissapear completely, fortunetaly i got the other tool -Winsockxpfix- and run it which recovers it, but my connection still don't work.

So, digging the internet i notice that maybe my problem is related to a kind of malware, but, most of all the solutions i found and try did not work, i don't try the other ones because to test them i need to download some files and unlucky me i can't download them again because of my connection

One of the solutions i found is the one that wutske suggest, and it doesn't work too because when i try to connect a site with it's IP address it doesn't work but when i use it's name it works, stange thing dont you think???? More on this, when i ping a site either by using it's IP address or it's domain name both commands work well and shows me the same results.

Another thing that i perform is to test my connection speed with some dsl and broadband tests available over the internet, some of the ones i do get me correct results and shows me what my connection speed is supose to be.

If you want to test your connection speed i reccomend to visit the Audit My Pc website and try the Internet Speed Test for Broadband, Cable, Satellite and DSL Modems that helps determine your true bandwidth and the Broadband Speed Test which is made with Flash and will help you test your bandwidth and find your true connection speed.

Best regards,

I didn't know WinsockXpfix does work on Win2k. I did use that to fix my problem. Thought it won't work on Win2K, thus I search for alternative for you.


If you can successfully ping the domain name, then the DNS is working, as it need to resolve to IP before it can ping.

Putting IP into the address bar might not work most of the time, except for big site. That's because most of the site are shared hosting/virtual host. The IP address will tell the network where to send the packet physically, but the "host" entry will tell the receiving server(like apache) which virtual host to send the request to. Only those site that host a single domain name under 1 IP might work. I believe google does. Not sure about the rest. If not mistaken, astahost also works using this concept to be able to host subdomains all under 1 server, having 1 IP only.

Looks like you don't have much of choice here. You can either test it out with a fresh windows install onto another partition, or reinstall your windows. Worse case, format and install

Well, thanks everybody for your help and finally i resolve my connection problem by purchasing a new Wireless ADSL Router that i'm just configuring right now, which replace my old Zyxel ADSL modem.


Yes, as i said it works fine on Win2k.


Exactly, this is something new for me and i can say that i test it with a lot of domains, and as you say it works only with big domains like google or msn.


Fortunately I did not have to do this because my new router is running well so far, however, I still think it is time to update my system.

So, right now i'm testing my new router with good results, i can receive emails from my POP3/SMTP accounts using outlook express, i can browse any domain, not only google related, i can browse yahoo, msn and ASTAHOST, my ftp client works as usual, and also the Ping and Tracert commands works too.

Best regards,