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I have a Netgear DSL modem (111 v2) and Linksys N300 router, newest model.
I have to keep flushing my DNS cache every 5-15 minutes. This happens on all sites and on every device on my home network. I have tried changing my DNS from Auto to Google's public DNS servers to no avail. It's been happening for the past week or two now.
The error I get when I try to ping a site that stops working is "Unknown Host".
Do I need to replace something? Can I tell my router to just stop caching DNS info? Any insight would be much appreciated.
(By the way, I have indeed restarted my modem/router, as well as factory reset my router.)
Hannah
Posted 2014-08-06T20:52:19.890
Reputation: 11
Does the problem resolve with just the router reboot (and no device reboot)? If two devices are having this problem, does rebooting one fix it while leaving the other failing? – Steve – 2014-08-06T20:59:25.167
@Steve Just tested the second scenario, Google was not working. Tried to access Google on both my phone and my computer, neither worked, so I reset the wifi on my phone and Google started working on both devices.
I'm going to test the router reboot as soon as I run into the error again. – Hannah – 2014-08-06T21:04:09.787
It's very strange that rebooting your phone would trigger the computer to function again. – Steve – 2014-08-06T21:06:17.707
@Steve I thought so too. I just looked at my router's attached devices and there are three lines of "UNKNOWN" devices with the same MAC address and slightly different IPs (these do not belong to anything in the house as far as I know). Do you think this could be causing problems? I don't know why they're there, I use WPA2 Personal... – Hannah – 2014-08-06T22:53:39.313
That does sound fishy to me. Can you clear your router's device list and if so, do they end up showing back up? – Steve – 2014-08-06T22:56:21.140
@Steve I couldn't find a way to clear the device list in the Linksys interface but I did figure out a way to prevent that MAC address from being able to use my wifi for now. Nothing new has shown up, but that MAC address still shows up (as "disconnected") under Attached Devices after rebooting. I will update with whether or not this fixes my DNS/whatever problem... wish I knew how those addresses got there. – Hannah – 2014-08-06T23:34:00.137
I don't remember the details, but part of the MAC address identifies the manufacturer of the device. That might give some clue. – Steve – 2014-08-07T02:58:19.317