Port Forwarding -- DNS Problem

[Nick]

I made a thread about the internet problems I was having, which I am sure is a DNS problem, thing is though is that I know pretty much next to nothing on how the internet works just the basics

When my internet works it's fine, but every other day or so firefox (and IE and opera) wouldnt be able to load webpages. Getting stuck on the 'lookup' part. So my big question is how do I solve this DNS problem. I've contacted my ISP and they were useless apart from telling me that my line is suppoesedly 'fine'. Trotter mentioned in my old thread that port forwarding certain ports on my router. I went on portforward.com but couldnt reeally work out what to do after selecting my router.

Could my router possibly be failing?

Thanks

~Nick

 

[mikesgroovin]

How would you typically fix the problem?
You may want to try using a different DNS entry. I typically use 4.2.2.1 because it is always up and is a secondary use root server. You could try entering in a root server as your DNS address though. Here are a couple of root servers to use:

1) 198.41.0.4
2) 192.203.230.10

Root servers are basically in charge of keeping the ABSOLUTE latest domain resolutions from around the world. All other DNS around the world get their address resolutions from them.

A lot of people use root servers, so I figure that the next in line from the root is just as good and not used so much... hence why I use 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2

 

[Nick]

Thanks for the reply, I'm in the UK will those servers work ok?

~Nick

 

[Kharn]

nick use openDNS it's fun an it's free.

 

[Nick]

Ok i'll give that a whirl

I've used the dns server thing which dr ip gave me so it's probably worth looking at them both, open source i'm guessing

 

[mikesgroovin]

Yea, those servers would work fine from the UK nick.
However...
I didn't notice the "Sidlesham" below your avatar. So, those servers that I gave you may not be the best due to latency. I would use opendns in your case. and no, it's not open source. As far as I know. Perhaps Saxon knows differently.

 

[Nick]

Ok, well I've been using those servers since 10pm last night and my internet is running fine, I've registered on openDNS but I've got geography work to be getting on with for the time being so I'll take a look later at openDNS

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Kharn]

I would use opendns in your case. and no, it's not open source. As far as I know. Perhaps Saxon knows differently.

Your right it's not open source

 

[Nick]

Why is it called openDNS?