96% of Internet is Borked.

[Xaven]

Why, hello. Okay, here's what's up. Most every site on the internet gives me a "server not found".

Only five or six sites work on my computer:
Google - all of it
Yahoo - most of it
Wikipedia - works for 20 minutes, then dies
Myspace - half of it
Dictionary.com - Works every 2nd day
Urban Dictionary - all of it. Haven't been on there in several months, but it was under my bookmarks so I checked it.

This happens in both Firefox and IE, so I don't believe it's a setting issue with either of them. I'm virus and spyware free (AVG and Ad-Aware SE deserve some loving). My cache, cookies, everything is emptied every time I close Firefox, so it's not like I'm running of them them. I can still use AIM, ICQ, Y!M, and MSN through Trillian, but most updater-things don't work (seeing as how they update from their servers which I can't connect to).

This is only the case for my own computer--every other computer in the house is fine. I usually use my Wireless adapter to connect, but it's the same when I use an ethernet cable. (I'm on the old, abused, family computer atm, seeing how I can't connect to EoFF from my lovely machine.)

This began a few days ago. Thinking back, I believe it started after booting my computer from an ancient, also abused and now crippled, Windows 98SE hard drive. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Help? :O

[CimminyCricket]

I've been having a similar problem sometimes when attempting to connect to EoFF using my lap top.

[Odaisé Gaelach]

This began a few days ago. Thinking back, I believe it started after booting my computer from an ancient, also abused and now crippled, Windows 98SE hard drive. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Now might be a good time to format the drive and install XP. If it's as abused and cripped as you say it is, I'd also run scandisk on it too (what, no chkdsk?).

[Xaven]

This began a few days ago. Thinking back, I believe it started after booting my computer from an ancient, also abused and now crippled, Windows 98SE hard drive. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Now might be a good time to format the drive and install XP. If it's as abused and cripped as you say it is, I'd also run scandisk on it too (what, no chkdsk?). :D

Already have. It's crippled because it doesn't have any drivers to use with my hardware on my state-of-the-art 2005 computer. Thus it can't get to the internet to download new drivers. I'll make a help thread for that later.

Besides, it's 10 gigs big. I have my XP HDD already, so why would I want another? I'm just trying to restore that thing. :P

[Mirage]

What, I don't quite understand your problem. You've already got XP, but use 98SE? Why? You don't need to be using 98SE in order to get to the data on the 98SE disk.

[o_O]

Are the internet problems on XP or 98? If they're on 98, make sure it has drivers for your hardware by downloading them onto your XP drive or the family computer and transferring them across via CD or floppy disk. I presume you're using NTFS for XP so you won't be able to access it directly from 98 without NTFS drivers. USB will be a problem in 98 too.

If the trouble is on XP, in all honesty, I'd just format and reinstall Windows. It's the most painless solution for me. If you back up the stuff you want to keep you can restore it fairly quickly.

Now that I mention restoration, have you tried a system restore point?

[Xaven]

No, no. The problem is in XP. I was just looking through 98 for a second for nostalgia. :P

*Sigh,* should I really do a reinstall/system restore? Eh. Never thought I'd see the day. I kept my computer was so perfect. D: I'll try the system restore. How might I go about doing that, sirs? I'll look into it when I get home though, so it may just be pretty straight-forward.

[Baloki]

It's either a network settings problem on your end (check your Windows Firewall is off and that you are getting your IP address dynamically assigned) or it's a problem on your router of which we'd need alot more information to try and fix.

Have you changed anything or installed anything lately?

[Mirage]

If the problems were on 98, it could have been related to 98's hard coded limit of 64 network connections. But that can't be the case in XP, as the limit in XP is 32000.

[crono_logical]

Sounds like possibly a DNS problem to me - check the DNS server entries on your PC are the same as on others which work, by doing an 'ipconfig /all' from the command prompt on various machines

[Mirage]

OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster DNS
Alternatively try setting these addresses as your primary and secondary DNS servers.

[o_O]

If the problems were on 98, it could have been related to 98's hard coded limit of 64 network connections. But that can't be the case in XP, as the limit in XP is 32000.

SP2's stack reduced the number of simultaneous connections to 10 to limit worm propagation. You need to patch tcpip.sys to raise it back up.

If it were DNS issues it would have to be a fault of the server, i.e. it keeps crashing or disconnecting. If it weren't, there wouldn't be any domain name resolution at all. I guess it could be maintained incomplete domain lists though.
Xaven, when a particular site stops working try accessing it from your browser via its IP address. If it works then it's definitely a DNS issue.

[Xaven]

Ho diddly hum. Changed my DNS to the ones on opendns.com, and now everything is back in working condition. It does seem rather sluggish now, but maybe it has nothing to do with that. I had my DNS set to something I saw at dslreports.com ages ago, so maybe that one just.. died. :P

And I haven't a clue how to check what a site's IP is. :P Looked around for it, but yeah. Oh, anyone have a quick link to something I could patchity up my tcpip.sys with? Just for the heck of it, really.

[o_O]

You can use teh LvlLord patch from <a href="http://www.lvllord.de/">here</a>. Be aware that it is technically a security risk to raise the number of connections allowed, hence the reason Microsoft reduced it to 10. Realistically, it isn't much of a risk.

An easy way to find an IP is to open a command prompt, and type "ping <site>" where <site> is the address of the site you need to resolve. It only works when you have good DNS servers though.

[crono_logical]

Actually, Microsoft reduced it to 8 in XP SP2.

Also, I give thumbs up to OpenDNS too, just started using it myself recently because I didn't like my ISP forcefully redirecting to a lame site when I enter invalid domain names