Just within the past day or two I've started having some odd behavior I can't seem to fix. On this vista install some of my DNS requests have started to run slow. I first noticed it in Firefox when I would get the "Looking up www..." message for an extended period of time in the status bar. Usually takes at least 10 seconds to resolve where ever it is I'm trying to get to. IE also is taking more time than usual just like Firefox. I tried to ping my destination (lets just use google as the example) and the following happened. If I do a 'ping google.com', the name is resolved and I immediately get replies. If I do a 'ping www.google.com', its sits for almost 10 seconds then comes back with the resolved ip address and replies. Any address I try and ping follows suite... if I prefix 'www' it hangs for the 10 seconds and then works. Without the 'www' it works immediately. In my browser, I get similar behavior. If I go to an address with 'www' prefixed, it does "Looking up..." for a period of time. Without the 'www', it immediately go to the page. The only thing I can find that may be causing or related to this is the firewall. If I turn off vista's firewall everything works fine. When the firewall is on I get the problem. I've been unsuccessful in finding what the firewall may be blocking. Within the past few days the only thing I've done out of the ordinary is setup a vpn connection to some destination. I used it and deleted it when I was done. Other than that, nothing of mention really's been changed lately. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Sounds like you have isolated the problem. It's a pretty interesting one. I would probably take it a step farther and sniff some traffic to see if your DNS resolver is actually attempting to resolve during your wait period.

Are you positive the VPN connection is not still there? Double-check that just in case. Also, try configuring your NIC with the following root-level DNS servers, then test again: 4.2.2.1 4.2.2.2 4.2.2.3 (pick 2)

Thanks guys. I've played with microsoft network monitor some. It looks like the request to the dns server doesn't even happen until after the 10 second delay. Once the request goes through, it gets a reply immediately. Just seems to be bottle necked at the firewall for some reason. I also tried use the root level dns servers. No change. Same problem.

Would it be a possibility to disable the integrated Vista firewall and install a 3rd party app?

Disable the integrated firewall... yes. Install a 3rd party app... maybe. I assume you mean a 3rd party firewall? Suggestions? If there's something useful this can tell us then I'm game. But, as far as a long term solution, I'd rather put up with the delay and find the problem.

ok... I found the culprit. I booted into safe mode and determined that I didn't have the problem there. So, I booted back into normal mode and started shutting down services. Eventually I found the one service that was causing my problem. RasAuto - "Remote Access Auto Connection Manager". I've since disabled the service and haven't had the problem anymore. The vpn I setup and deleted last week must have triggered something, but not sure what.