Hp zd8000 Connection failure.

I have had this laptop for over a year now. I have virus checked it, defragged it, run System Mechanic regularly but the problem still remains with the amount of time it takes to connect to the internet on my first connection. I have changed from IE7 to Firefox, this runs faster but I still have the same problem. Whichever site I attempt to connect to the first attempt will fail. Come up 'Looking up www.***********' in the bottom left corner, then I will get the retry screen. When I hit retry it will usually connect straight away, however sometimes it will refuse to connect until the computer has been rebooted. I have wireless networking but have disabled this option and am now using a wired connection to a BT Home Hub. Any suggestions please, I can't seem to get rid of this problem.

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wetdogleader hath wroth:

I'll assume you're using XP Home.

Control Panel -> Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN Settings Uncheck everything.
Check your zd8000 wireless settings. If you have typed in your DNS servers, the primary DNS server IP is probably wrong.
Go into they BT Home Hub, of which I know little, and make sure the WAN settings are all DHCP. If you have specified DNS servers, the primary is probably typed wrong.
Check the HP web pile for updates to your wireless drivers. Same with the BT Home Hub.
You don't indicate how the speed looks after you successfully connect to a typical web server. Just because it can lookup an address doesn't mean there isn't something else wrong. If you have a weak signal, or lots of interference, you're going to have additional problems. I suggest you run a speed test with one of the multitude of online services, preferably as close to BT.NET as possible. I'm not familiar with UK servers. If you have a strong signal, and the results are just fine via a wired connection, but dismal via wireless, you may have an interference problem.

Such interference will cause packet loss, which also might be responsible for the delayed DNS lookups.

Try this experiment: Find out the IP addresses of the DNS servers used by your ISP. There should be two of them. Might as well do that for you:

Ok, there are your name servers. Now go to: Control Panel -> Networks -> Wireless_card -> Properties -> TCP/IP and type in the first two DNS servers. Save. Run: ipconfig /flushdns which flushes the local DNS cache so that doesn't mess up the test. Try it now. If that speeds up DNS lookups, then there's something wrong with your BT Home Hub or it's setup. What you're doing is bypassing the DNS cache in the Home Hub.