My network server accesses the Internet perfectly, but the clients have weird problems.
The clients can access many sites with little or no trouble every time but there are many other sites that they can rarely (or never) access.
The problem has been present since I installed the network about a year ago,
but I just kinda' learned to live with it because the main role of the clients on my network was gaming, and they were all able to access the MS Gaming Zone site ok.
However, I'm not willing to live with it any more ...I need my clients to be able to access the Internet the same way my server does (like they're supposed to).

Additional info:

I have DSL service though SBC Global.
My server connects to my phone line via a Efficient Networks SpeedStream PCI card.

My server and all clients have 3COM Etherlink III ISA network cards installed.

My server and clients all connect to my hub via their Etherlink III network cards and RJ45 cabling.

My hub is and external Ungermann-Bass, STMM24-A, 24-port Access/Stax hub.

The network uses Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing and was automatically setup using Microsoft Home Networking Wizard.

I have no significant problems with my network when it comes to file and printer sharing, ect.

Usually when I cannot access a site, Internet Explorer will say that it's opening the page (EXAMPLE: Opening page http://www.google.com)
..then the loading bar at the bottom of the IE6 window will move but it will move very, very slowly ..then eventually a "Connection timed out" or "The page cannot be displayed" message will pop up.

Over the past year I really have tried everything I could possibly think of to get this problem to go away, but have had no success.
I'm really, really hoping you guys can help me.

Please let me know if you need any other info.

This sounds like a DNS problem. Try manually entering the IP address info for your clients and add the DNS addresses for your ISP into the TCP/IP info on all clients as well and see if that doesn't fix this problem.

CurtR is right on! I struggled with that issue for months thinking it was a problem with the site or my ISP. No one was able to figure it out. I was doing some work on my wife's computer (client) one day and changed the DNS number to that of my ISP and whamo, the problem disappeared!

I'm very relieved that it sounds like anything other than a complete mystery to you guys.

Wouldn't doing what you suggest require me to have a satic IP address?
(I have dynamic)

You only get one IP address from your ISP...whether it's dynamic or static doesn't affect your internal LAN (local area network) at home. You choose what IP addressing scheme to use for the internal LAN and can either have the IP's statically assigned, or dynamically.

The program ICS handles the Network Address Translation (NAT) on your internal LAN. What that does in a nutshell is track all the client PC's and their IP addresses (internal) and converts them to the ISP assigned address when sending queries. Upon receiving a reply, ICS then figures out which client IP to send the reply to.

Doh!
I posted more than what appears in my last follow up but it didn't show up for some reason :(

It was basically just me asking for some exact step by step instructions becuase a lot of questions came up when I tried to do what you guys suggested.

Here are some questions that came up while I was trying to set up DNS:
From where do I get the host name and domain name for my clients when enabling DNS?
If I enable DNS on my clients, do I need to enable it on my server as well ...and if so, would I need to enter a different host and domain name?
From where exactly do I get the IP addresses to enter into my clients and do I also need to enter an IP address for my server or should I allow it to continue to obtain it's IP addresses automatically (as my ISP provides them dynamically)?
Should I try manually entering the IP addresses at the same time that I enable DNS or are these two seperate things that I should try (not at the same time)?
If I enable DNS, is there something else that I would need to disable/change?
If I manually enter the IP addresses, is there anything else that I need to make adjustments to? ...

Your ISP has DNS servers you can use. Go to their support site to find some servers.

Put a DNS IP address in your server's configuration as well. In fact, this may be all you need but I cannot be sure.

Your server has two IP addresses - one local and one public. The public one is used by the server to access the Internet. The private one is only for network use. Just leave the server's IP alone.

For your setup you should be using static IP's anyway (locally, behind your ICS machine).

Just put in a DNS server for each client. This way the clients know where to go for address translation. You can add static IP's as well from a private address block (192.168.x.x for example) if you want. Test one before the other.

I tried what I thought you may have meant, but it didn't work and it completely stopped my network from working.
I restored my network to it's original settings but it still won't work at all.

Must have made some kind of weird permanent change.

I'm gonna do a system re-install to fix the problem then I'll try your suggestions again, but I'm not very familiar with the terms ...without a step-by-step I'm afraid it'll just be guess work for me.

Thanks for the help so far

Hello

I have the same problem and i put the dns and do not solve the problem. My client is windows nt4 and server is windows xp. With windows 2000 pro i have the same problem (i install windows xp today to try solve the problem (i think,"the server is the problem" but no it isn't).

My network work every time (with dns and without dns).
On clients one of the sites i can't acces is www.microsoft.com and i cannot make updates.

My connection is ADSL

Yah, microsoft.com is one of the sites I absolutely cannot access at this point.
I was able to access it sometimes a few months ago but now I just simply can't access it all.

Anyway..
I was searching the web for hours last night looking for solutions when I came accross a very interesting page:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q273/5/87.asp&NoWebContent=1

The interesting thing is that it seems to discribe the problem I'm having and I am, in fact, using an Efficient Networks P.P.P.o.E Adapter (NTSP3) to connect to my ISP.

However, the pages instructions on how to fix the problem don't seem to work.
FOR EXAMPLE:
The instructions ask you to click 'Always dial my default connection' but that option isn't even valid until a connection has been added to the list ...and if I click 'Add' to add my connection, my adapter doesn't even show up as an option ...in fact, I think dial-up modems are the only devices that would ever show up.

Still, I find the page to be very interesting and I wonder if perhaps the instructions just need to be tailored to Windows ME or something.

soo..
this become a dead topic or something?

cause I could still really use some help here

Hello!!

I found the solution of the problem (at least it resulted for me). After also searching some hours, I found this in another forum that I put to follow:

"If you're using Windows' built-in support for Internet Connection Sharing, and your Internet connection is facilitated by PPPoE software (such as Enternet 300) or Windows XP's built-in PPPoE, you may experience this problem. Although any web site will be accessible on the "Host" computer, certain web sites will never load successfully from any of the "client" machines. (If you don't know what "Hosts" or "Clients" are with regard to ICS, read Internet Connection Sharing.) The problem is caused by an incompatible MTU networking setting: Windows' default is 1500, but PPPoE uses 1492 or 1454. Here's how to fix it:

Find the IP address of your gateway. If you're using Windows 2000 or XP, run IPCONFIG at a command prompt on the Host computer. If you're using Windows 98 or Me, run WINIPCFG on the Host computer. Either way, you'll get an address that looks like xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (where the x's represent numbers).
Then, go to one of your Client machines, and type the following:
PING -f -l 1500 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
(where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the gateway address you obtained in the first step). You'll probably get an error message indicating that it must be fragmented. If you do, type the following:
PING -f -l 1492 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
If that doesn't work, try this:
PING -f -l 1454 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
The numbers in each of these examples (1500, 1492, 1454) are the MTU values. Continue issuing this command with lower and lower MTU numbers until you get ping responses instead of an error message. The highest MTU value that works is the one you need to be using. If an MTU of 1500 (the first command, above) does not produce an error, then this solution won't work for you.
The next step is to configure all your Client computers to use the new, lower MTU as the default for all Internet communication.
Windows 2000 and XP:

Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT.EXE) on one of your "Client" machines.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Services\ Tcpip\ Parameters\ Interfaces.
There should be several subkeys under the Interfaces key; most likely, you'll find three. View the contents of each key by clicking, and find the one that corresponds to your primary network adapter; it will be the one with more values than the other two, and will have an IP address value set to something like 192.168.0.x.
Once you've found the correct subkey, create a new DWORD value in it (Edit -> New -> DWORD Value), and name the value MTU.
Double-click the new value, choose the Decimal option, and type the MTU value determined above.
Click Ok when you're done - you'll need to restart Windows for this change take effect.
Repeat this for each Client machine.

Windows 98/Me:
Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT.EXE) on one of your "Client" machines.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ CurrentControlSet\ Services\ Class\ Nettrans\.
Under that branch, find a key (numbered, such as 0005) that contains has TCP/IP assigned to the DriverDesc value.
Select New from the Edit menu, then String Value, and type MaxMTU for the name of the new value.
Double-click the new value, choose the Decimal option, and type the MTU value determined above(mine is 1454).
Click Ok when you're done - you'll need to restart Windows for this change take effect.
Repeat this for each Client machine."

Oh my god!!
It fixed it!!!!!!
Thank you so much for checking my post and having enough sense to recognize the very unique signature of the problem (ability to access all sites perfectly on host, while certain sites remain completely inaccessible on clients).

And thank you for taking the time to post a reply!
With such a complex solution I may have continued trying various suggestions for months with no success (had you not posted).

Yay!!!!! :)