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sometimes no DNS on wireless laptop from USR8054

"Fully updated", without XP SP2 is a contradiction. I suggest you finish the job by installing XP SP2 and subsequent band-aids. EVERY Dell Inspiron 5160 laptop I've ordered came with SP2 pre-installed. What happened that inspired you to reload XP from scratch and not bother to bring it up to at least the way it was shipped?

Nice laptop. Watch out for the odd power connector coming from the giant brick size power supply. At the laptop end, the cable is too small, does not have much of a strain relief, and will break the tiny center wire if you bend the cable at a right angle to the connector.

OK. DNS on your XP laptop has a problem. I'll assume that the Debian box is working normally with it's LAN connection.

  1. If your client radio hasn't been active for a while, the initial DNS lookup when it comes alive may fail due to timing collisions with startup delays. With DNS, it may switch to the secondary DNS server and not return to the primary for a while. If the secondary is bogus, dead, or my favorite problem, mistyped, it will continue to return "host knot found" errors for a while.
  2. Are you using a very short DHCP lease time? If so, when your computah goes into power save, the router drops the entry because the lease has not been renewed. On wakeup, some clients seem to forget to renew the lease. It's easy enough on Windoze using: ipconfig /renew or ipconfig /registerdns You might also wanna check what the router is reporting for DHCP using:
    formatting link
    the free DHCP Query Tool at the bottom for Windoze and various Linux mutations.
  3. XP's Wireless Zero Config sometime conflicts with the stock wireless drivers. Since my guess(tm) is that you've reinstalled the OS from an XP disk that was not the Dell "Windoze Recovery" joke of a disk, methinks you may have screwed something up in the wireless driver or system install. If you're using some driver for the wireless card that you downloaded from the Dell web pile, you may wanna try disabling (not removing) Wireless Zero Config in: Control Panel -> Admin Tools -> Services and see if it helps. Also, try disabling any type of power saving features in the wireless device configuration.
  4. Back to DHCP issues. One problem I've seen with XP is that I get IP addresses, the gateway, but no DNS. I've seen this on 4 machines so far and have not found a reliable fix. It's the result of a partial spyware removal and/or a roll back of XP SP2 to the previous state. If you run: ipconfig /all | more you'll notice that the DNS server entries are missing. I can kludge a fix by inserting the DNS servers into the network configuration and leave the IP and gateway to be 'server assigned'. If I run the above DHCP Query Tool on one of these machines, it reports back DNS server entries, but XP fails to configure them for some reason. If anyone finds a fix for this, I would be very interested.

Well, try the simpler test of: ipconfig /release (wait about 10 seconds) ipconfig /renew Duz that work?

That won't help because restarting the client does not initiate a DHCP renewal request.

Well, try to create the problem. Put the laptop into Hibrinate mode. Wait a while. Bring it back from the sleep of the dead. Does it work or does it have the same problem? If so, I don't have a clue what to suggest. Something in the wireless driver isn't working right. Check driver versions for something later?

That's normal. Most modern routers have built in DNS caches to speed up repetative lookups.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann
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Hi,

I am trying out this new USR8054 router (and comparing it againt D-Link's DI-524). I have a Linux Debian computer connected to the router with a CAT5 cable and a Windows XP (fully updated, except SP2) connects to the router wireless (Inspiron 5160 with a Broadcom 1350 Wireless card).

Sometimes, when the laptop wakes up from hibernation, it seems not to get any DNS server address. Ping works to LAN as well as outside. Ping outside IP addresses works but pinging URLs fails.

I have tried disabeling the wireless card and re-enabling it. No luck. I have tried restarting networking service in XP, no luck. Restarting dhcp client is also no luck. I also rebooted the router, without luck. The only thing that seems to work is rebooting the laptop.

And when everything is working fine, I notice that the laptop sees

192.168.0.1 (USR8054 LAN IP address) as the DNS as well as the gateway.

Anybody else have this problem? Any suggestions?

thanks,

->HS

Reply to
H. S.

As usual, this has nothing to do with wireless or the internet.

It's not the ferrite blob (bead) that's the problem. Here's the power supply:

formatting link
bad for 130 watts output.

What happens is that people use the laptop as a desktop replacment and leave the power supply plugged in all the time. Most users shove the laptop toward the wall until it stops. What hits the wall first is the power connector, causing the cable to bend at a right angle (or more). The tiny center conductor on the power cable cannot handle the applied tension and breaks inside the power connector. It's easily repaired by replacing the connector, but finding the weird connector has been a challenge. The symptoms are equally challenging. The laptop reports that it will run off the external power supply, but refuses to charge the battery.

So far, I've had to deal with about 4 such broken power plugs. In the first 3, I went through the Dell warranty repair ordeal. In all 3 times, Dell shipped out an empty box with instructions to remove the hard disk, *NOT* ship the power supply, and to just send the computah. In all three times, it was returned with some rediculously unrelated trivial repair, and a declaration that nothing was wrong. I then called back, explained the problem and was shipped a new power supply as an exchange. Even though I warned the support droid of the empty box problem in the 2nd and 3rd warranty repair, Dell insisted that we stupidly ship them the computah first. That was about 6 months ago, and hopefully they now have a clue. With the 4th broken power supply connector, I chopped it off, installed a new connector, and lived happily ever after.

If you dig through the Dell online support forums for Inspiron power issues at:

formatting link
'll find quite a few "adapter cannot be determined" message type issues which are all connector problems. However, Dell still refuses to recognize that they're sellling a flakey power supply connector and will make the user go through all manner of useless contortions before replacing the unit.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

er .. in Windows XP? I am not even sure there is a /etc/ in WinXP. As far as the wired Linux computers are concerned, they are working properly. Actually, the wired computer have had solid connections on both USR8054 as well as DI-524.

regards,

->HS

Reply to
H. S.

In my Linux machine, I have Bell Sympatico DNS servers. When I uncomment them, no DNS in this machine too (as expected). If I mention just

192.168.0.1 (USR8054 LAN IP address) in /etc/resolv.conf as a nameserver, then URLs work just fine in the Linux machine. So there, the router's LAN IP address seems to be working fine as a nameserver. BTW, the Linux computer, wired to USR8054, has a static IP address.

The Windows XP laptop is a DHCP client in my LAN. In this client, upon waking up from hibernation, the USR8054 LAN IP is listed as the DNS server, which all good and dandy. But URLs do not work in Windows XP.

->HS

Reply to
H. S.

What I meant was: Except SP2, all other updates are installed.

I might, soon. I updated another of my LAN computers (dual boots with Debain Sid) and have had no problems so far. So I might 'finish the job' soon.

This particular did not.

- Upgraded to XP Professional.

- Needed my own partitioning to dual boot it with Debian Sid.

The Debian box had my ISP nameservers in it's /etc/resolv.conf. I changed them to router's LAN IP and it was working fine. So router's DNS seems to be working okay as far as wired connections are concerned.

7 days at present. But I have tried with 1 day period as well.

I tried the 'ipconfig /release' and 'ipconfig /renew'. Will try 'ipconfig /registerdns'.

Okay, Will try.

Your guess is correct.

I did.

Okay, will try this.

hmm .. I thought of that. But couldn't find such an option. Hint?

I am experimenting with this today by setting it to hibernate after 10 minutes of idle time.

The driver is most recent.

Thanks for the nice explanations and suggestions. Really appreciate it.

regards,

->HS

Reply to
H. S.

What's content of /etc/resolv.conf when the DNS lookups are failing?

Thomas

Reply to
Thomas Krüger

Sorry, I was reading too fast... :-/

Thomas

Reply to
Thomas Krüger

Or, wait until it breaks, and remove the stupid lump of an rf choke that puts a constant strain on the wire where it is most vulnerable ;-(

Reply to
dold

Nope, that did not work.

BTW, what I did notice after experimenting by letting it hibernate a few times today was that if I relogin as an administrator after the laptop wakes up, I face no problems with DNS. However, if I relogin as a restricted user, I get that same DNS problem: can ping all IPs (external as well as internal) but cannot ping URLs.

->HS

Reply to
H. S.

I was very careful. I don't think I ever jammed it back against the wall, due to the configuration of my desk. I was careful when winding up the power supply not to kink the opposite end, where it enters the brick.

But the wire broke at the laptop end. No replacement connector available, although several techs that have seen my repair comment about how common the problem is. I cut the connector off and dug into the soft potting material at the connector until I revealed some good wire to solder the wire back onto.

One source of connectors might be the "tip" available from Targus for their universal air/auto DC adapter. It would be made to plug onto the end of the Targus cable, but it would have the Dell connector on the other end, and be available for a little reconstruction. Those might be available individually, although I haven't checked.

Reply to
dold

The problem was Zone Alarm. It was blocking packets on port 53. I allowed it (made my router IP, 192.168.0.1, as trusted zone) and pinging URLs worked great.

Now only if I can find a way so that if I allow the change as administrator it should work for all users...

->HS

Reply to
H. S.

Zone alarm's settings are applied across all users anyway (at least, it works thataway for me on XP Pro). You can password-protect ZA to prevent normal users from changing settings.

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

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