Slow or timing-out DNS lookups -- still looking for relief

Is it just your Win 10 desktop having this issue or all devices on your network?  What modem/route/gateway are you using?

Hi MartinFS,

What other devices connect to your home network? Does your household have a laptop, tablet, mobile phone, or game system? I'm curious about your online experience when using a device other than your desktop PC.

Use the steps found at http://bit.ly/CoxInternetSpeedTest to log into your Cox account and run the Internet Tools Speed Test a few times on your desktop PC. Please post your results. Also, just to confirm, is your desktop PC connected directly to your Motorola modem via an ethernet cord?

Becky--thanks for the rModel esponse. Some addl info:

1. Internet "modem" is a Motorola SURFboard eXtreme Wireless Cable Modem Gateway, AKA Model SBG6580.

2. Devices on the network:  wired--My Win10 client; another Win10 client; WD MyCloud; Panasonic Blueray player; Apple TV; Wifi Extender; wireless -- Lexmark printer, 3 iphones; 2 ipad Airs.

3. Other than on the Windows machines, no obvious connection issues (though I'm not sure how I would notice problems on some of the devices.)

4. The two Windows machines were recently upgraded from Win 8.1, but the connectivity issues seemed neither better nor worse than before the upgrades.

5. Data transfer speed is not the issue: transfer speed is fine. It's establishing connections with Internet resources that is slow or failing.

Becky--thanks again for your response. Should I continue to try to get answers here or should I open a ticket by phone to the support line?

@MartinFS

If you're confident you've isolated the issue specifically to DNS lookups you can try running nslookup to test DNS resolution when you're seeing the problem. You may also want to check which DNS server is being used in the process.

Chris-- Thanks for the ideas. I'm not clear on what you are suggesting I do with the results of Nslookup or even which specific commands you have in mind.  I did just run "Nslookup google.com" about 10 times; it was successful used this server for all tries:

Server: cdns1.cox.net
Address: 68.105.28.11

The problem is not there all the time, but loong lookup times and "server not found" happens very frequently, even sometimes for Cox's own SMTP and pop servers from my e-mail client (T-Bird). That happened about an hour ago. 

I wish I knew more about how DNS works, which caches are used when, etc. 

Meanwhile, I am seriously considering getting FIOS service (in addition to Cox at least until I see if that solves the problem.) I've pretty much exhausted all other possibilities with my limited knowledge and the assistance I've gotten so far from Cox over the past 6 months. 

Again, thanks for your response. 

Martin

@MartinFSSr

Are you sure it's a DNS problem you're experiencing? Most "DNS" problems aren't actually DNS issues but problems with the connection to the DNS server.

Well, OK. So what is a "problem with the connection to the DHS server"" and how do I diagnose and FIX it?

Another question while I have your attention: what Internet modem/router product would you think is least likely to have problems with Internet service?  I looked at the Cox Preferred and Cox Supported list but they seem to focus on how they work with TV service.

Thanks

I am having a similar problem with My Netgear 6300.  I had what I thought was ok internet (which is what my router says too...not excellent...just ok) when I have been paying for Premier but in the last month it has gotten really bad.  I am thinking of canceling completely and switching to another brand. 

I took everything off our our router and reset it to factory defaults this last weekend and I still had to reboot it over 10 times on sunday alone.  The unit is less a year old and kept in a cool room high above the ground.  Finally found the log and it was complaining of DNS failure as well.  Two of my channels never locked in.  This should not happen. 

Searching the forums I found that Cox has not released the latest firmware that my router has available. 

@MartinFSSr

In this case the DNS server is actually the router as how it handles all DNS traffic. You could try using different DNS servers configured at a PC and see if that works any better. It might also be worth running pingplotter to a popular host on the Internet and see if any intermittent connection problems to that surface.

@ETMARKELL

I looked form this end and I'm more concerned about the signal levels being well out of spec. Are there any splitters you can try bypassing?