For the past couple of months, my home internet connection has been dropping repeatedly across every device. Windows troubleshooting reports that it cannot communicate with the primary DNS server, that the DNS server is not responding, or that it may be unavailable. Other messages suggest there could be an IP-related connection problem. I have already contacted my internet provider and replaced the router, but the outages continue. I also tried manually setting DNS servers such as 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 without improvement. What tests can help determine whether the problem is DNS, the wider internet connection, or the provider's equipment?
2 Answers
If pinging a public IP works reliably but name-based browsing does not, try changing the DNS servers to 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1, or another reputable DNS provider. Changing DNS on the computer may help test the theory, but changing it on the router would apply it to the whole household. Since the router is rented and its settings are locked, ask the provider to change the DNS configuration or investigate their DNS service.
Start by running a continuous ping to a public IP address, such as `ping 8.8.8.8 -t`, or try `ping 1.1.1.1`. If those pings keep working while websites fail, DNS is probably the issue. If you also see timeouts, the problem is more likely an unstable connection between your home network and the provider. Occasional isolated timeouts can happen, but frequent or patterned ones should be documented and reported to the provider.
I cannot access the router configuration because it is controlled under my rental agreement with the provider. I have tried changing DNS manually on individual devices, including 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, but the connection still drops.