Hi all, This is a bit of a challenge really and I need some guidance with this as it is driving me insane. Issue: I can connect to any network wireless/wired and set up IP and DNS dynamically/statically and get internet through loads of different networks, access points etc without any issues. The problem is that at college they have an access point, and it works for everyone except me it would seem. Network technicians tell me it's my problem with some setting. So I tried them all. Short of reformatting the laptop to eliminate some mad setting somewhere, I don't know what to do. The symptoms are as follows: can get connected (its even unsecured so no encryption issues), ipconfig tells me that I have obtained an IP, DNS and default gateway but when I open 99% of my links/bookmarks it will not load. NSLOOKUP yields IPs, the DNS server does not ping however. I think it does for others (firewall? surely not). I had noticed the same IP being given out everytime, but this was changed later when I asked the technician to look into it. I'm thinking its a routing issue, there are no proxies set up on mine, nor does anyone else have to set them up. Other laptops the same as mine work and I cannot see any differences in their settings and mine. I have deleted the wireless network multiple times to no avail. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I thought it was due to me setting a static IP and DNS on the NIC but why work in others and not here, even after dynamically setting them? What makes this difficult is that I have no control to see the college side of things. Funnily the college website, Google (searches but cant browse links) comes up and FAS website too. Nothing in common there. It just doesn't make sense. Any and all help is appreciated. I feel somewhat foolish as I set up routers and networks but this catches me out. Murphy's Law. Any suggestions?

you might go into tcp/ip in properties of your connection, choose alternate dns server type in 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220 i use these, and they are mucho faster. hope they work for you

Hi mountain, I have used external DNS servers also without success, but I will try this out. I think it is a routing issue as nslookup seems to work ok (just wont get a reply from the default DNS as handed out by DHCP) which seems like some arp table is corrupted, also when checking emails, the sending (if outbox is empty) works, but receiving doesn't, in other words sending traffic like requesting a page etc works, but any return traffic doesn't seem to be routing my way for some reason. I have looked at firewalls to see if it is blocking incoming connections, but it isn't also why work elsewhere? Still puzzled. Additional info, if I vpn out to a different network, some of the linls seem to work! Weird! Layer 2 network issue?

The college DNS Servers may be setup to not respond to pings. Double check and make sure that you have all software firewalls disabled on your PC. Are you using an integrated wireless card, or is it external? Could you connect an external wireless card to your computer to see of it works? If so, then it is an issue with your original wireless card. Try doing a tracert to the IP of the DNS servers. Also do another nslookup, but specifiy an external DNS server by using the server <space> <IP> command. It would make sense if name resolution is working when you go to the college's website, because technically you are still browing internally assuming the college hosts their own website on their own infrastrucutre. I would download Ethereal and sniff some traffic to get down to the nitty gritty. Picking out DNS resolution is quite simple as it is uses UDP:53 and does no handshaking. Is there another access point elsewhere on campus that you could try to connect to? Also go to your command prompt and issue a ping to 64.233.161.104. This is an IP that resolves to www.google.com. If you get replies, traditional Layer-3 routing and ICMP traffic would be functional.

Thanks, I will be back to check these suggestions out on Monday and get back to you. FYI it is an internal wireless card. If using an external and it works though, may also mean some sort of restriction on the mac level in the college. I located a usb alternative and will check it out.