DNS server not responding. Please help!

[stillcrying]

Can't connect to Internet. Get a "dns server not responding message" when I do a diagnostic test. And that is the absolute limit of my technical knowledge. Have searched on iPhone (thank god there is a faint but detectable 3G signal in the back garden!) but all the results seem to be written in Martian.

What do I do? Is it me or my pc, or something else? I've tried the old turn off and turn on trick with pc and wireless router. None of my techy friends are answering their phones and I really need to get onto my Internet banking site to find out why the council seems to think I haven't paid my council tax. Aaaghh...

I get this a lot at busy times of day. Our exchange is massively overloaded.

Try at midnight. It always works for me.

You could try going via a proxy service - www.hidemyass.com - ia their IP address.

Use this link http://216.18.194.245/ and then where it shows 'google.com' in a panel in the middle, enter your bank's web address.

Since you are connecting via a remote service, that service will do the DNS lookups.

I could certainly talk you through other tests but try this as an emergency measure and come back if you are still locked out of your bank.

PS When I tried this logging into my bank a/c with HSBC, I was getting a pop-up box from the bank interrupting me entering my banking ID, so I typed it in the address bar, then copied it into the buffer and when I got rid of the pop-up about some security software HSBC keeps prompting me to download, I pasted my bank ID into the box and clicked to get to the next screen.

I kept on getting the pop-up (probably a problem to do with cookies), but it was just to warn you this isn't an ideal solution and you might find some quirks going via that service.

Hope you get no further problems with DNS tonight.

OpenDNS may be useful if it is your ISPs DNS servers which play up. The free basic edition is all you need for your computer to route all DNS lookups to OpenDNS servers, rather than your ISPs.

True, NN, but without knowing a lot more about (a) ISP connection and (b) PCs etc, it is maybe a bit too technical as a short-term (like yesterday night) fix.

It is also worth considering using one of the Google servers at 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4 (though there may be disadvantages with both Google and OpenDNS in terms of how they handle failed lookups).

Thanks everyone, and sorry for not getting back to you - I managed to post the query twice, and was looking at the second thread I started and feeling grumpy I had no replies. Have only just noticed this one...

Anyhow, spent 90 mins on the phone to my broadband provider most of which was spent trying to actually speak to someone, and relatively little of which was spent trying to fix the problem. They said it wasn't an exchange problem so thought it was an issue with my router or filter [??]. However, when they cut me off for the third time I lost the will to live, so am going to try again tonight.

I really hate modern living sometimes. Life was so much easier when all you could do was wait until the bank opened and stand in the queue...

The 'filter' is the small unit that goes between the BT socket and the plug from your router. There should be one for each active phone socket (whether you have a phone, answerphone, Sky box, fax... plugged in).

The filter is used to separate the high-pitched noises out of what comes to the phone, and sometimes if there is a fault then picking up the phone can cause the connection to fail, but not really likely to affect your DNS settings.

Which ISP are you with, being nosy ? I'm using PlusNet which has staff in Sheffield and they're aiming to match /'beat' any other ISP price for similar service. I've been with them off and on for 7 years (apart from when I moved and had no landline for 30 months, just used mobile and mobile broadband).

Happy to recommend them (and now and then they do promotions like offering 20 to 50 quid is M+S vouchers - depends on the account the new customer goes for as to how much the vouchers are worth).

Of course, you might be stuck in a contract for months and months, or have a combination package with phone calls, broadband and line rental in one, so more awkward to switch ISP.