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[martok]

After about a week of having my DIR655 (fw 1.21, rev A4) up and running, the internet got considerably slower. Some pages took minutes to load; some did not load at all. Many pages seem to load halfway and then hang. I checked that DNS relay was off and other things, and everything seemed to be in order. Then I checked my connection properties, and under "IPv4 DNS Addresses" there were over 30 listed! I could not get rid of them, including releasing/renewing my IP address, and the internet stayed very slow.

Finally, I broke down and unplugged the router. After plugging it back in and renewing my IP address, I am back down to the usual 2 DNS Addresses and a fully functioning internet (for now...).

Any suggestions on what I can do to prevent this from happening again? Should I be using 1.11 instead of 1.21?

Thanks.

[bluenote]

Post a screenshot, Im not sure where you are seeing this.  I suspect you may be seeing the local LAN DHCP reservations, which shouldn't be a problem (although, if you are getting that many, you do have something funny going on with your address registration).

[martok]

Post a screenshot, Im not sure where you are seeing this.  I suspect you may be seeing the local LAN DHCP reservations, which shouldn't be a problem (although, if you are getting that many, you do have something funny going on with your address registration).

My DHCP reservation list is fine (I set that up myself). The IPv4 DNS addresses are mostly (if not all) external IP addresses. I rebooted the router that few days ago, and since then, more than the original 2 have started to appear again (but not yet anyways near 30). Here is a screen shot of what it looks like today:

[bluenote]

Sorry, I misread and thought you were seeing this list on the router somewhere.

I guess the question here is, is this a windows peculiarity (as if it kept receiving new DNS addresses with each DHCP renew, and appending the addresses?), or is it a router bug (delivering so many DNS addresses every time).

I'd be interested to know what the progression is.  Beyond that, if it isnt happening anymore, I'd just be thankful.

If it still is happening, then thats where I would concentrate my efforts, in examining under what conditions and what progression DNS addresses get cumulatively added in windows.  (And compare against, what the current router info says at the time).

good luck

[tentimes]

That's a bit weird. I just checked mine to compare and I have 1 DNS address. Have you run a spyware and AV check? What AV system are you using? I wonder if it's Norton or McAfee...

[EddieZ]

I would not be surprised if you have some malware on your PC. This cannot be caused by the router. Technically impossible.

[bluenote]

An impossibility?  DHCP supports delivering as many DNS servers as you wish to configure it to do so.

How is this, then, impossible?

I will agree, however, that it is unlikely.

[martok]

That's a bit weird. I just checked mine to compare and I have 1 DNS address. Have you run a spyware and AV check? What AV system are you using? I wonder if it's Norton or McAfee...

I believe it is customary to have 2 DNS addresses from your ISP, however depending on your router/network setup, you could have a server or the router act as your network-facing DNS. I use Avira and have scanned with it and Spybot.

I would not be surprised if you have some malware on your PC. This cannot be caused by the router. Technically impossible.

Thanks, but I do not have any malware or viruses. I run Avira AV, use FF with NoScript, am very careful with my browsing and download habits. Also, it went away the moment I rebooted the router, and have not experienced it using any of my other 2 routers, tethering to my iPhone, or one of the various wireless networks I have used since this popped up.

I am not suggesting that it is necessarily the router's 'fault', perhaps Windows is saving more than the newest set the router sends, or is finding some in other places? I simply posted to see if anyone else had heard of or experienced a similar problem, or to see if anyone could offer advice. I do appreciate everyone's time and suggestions.

I will continue to watch and see if I can find a pattern.

[martok]

More Observations: I just checked another computer on the network, and it had the same 6 DNS addresses as my computer. I plugged it in via ethernet, and the same exact DNS addresses came up immediately for that connector as well.

Note that this computer is Windows 7 Professional x64 just like mine. I will try to check the vista computer er and also the MacBook to see if they have similar results.

[tentimes]

I find this really really weird - I have never seen a computer take up 6 DNS and thought there should always be just 1 with another as a backup.

The 0.64.0.0 is very interesting - if you don't know what that is then I would suggest you get very worried and start tryng to find out. A relay to an internal DNS that you know nothing of would suggest a program running on your network subverting DNS. REmember that spyware and AV software will NOT catch everything. I had a really serious breach about a year ago and NOTHING picked it up. I only found it when I used HijackThis and read through the startup code to find that a commonly used DLL that is hooked into servicehost had been breached and was acting as a mailserver. No AV software or aqnything else could catch it.

You also have a possible loopback on one of your DNS which could cause a problem (64.246.140.96)

I would suggest (very strongly) that you should only have one DNS and one backup DNS, otherwise you are asking for trouble. Have you had a look at OpenDNS?

Also, some kind of software has intervened to add DNS to your IPv4 without your knowledge - naughty! Unless you put those extra ones there yourself, which I doubt.

Why not select optain DNS and IP automatically and then alter the router to decide which DNS you want. You can also then leave the router on automatic.

[martok]

update: macbook on network has same 6 IP addresses.

I find this really really weird - I have never seen a computer take up 6 DNS and thought there should always be just 1 with another as a backup.

The 0.64.0.0 is very interesting - if you don't know what that is then I would suggest you get very worried and start tryng to find out. A relay to an internal DNS that you know nothing of would suggest a program running on your network subverting DNS. REmember that spyware and AV software will NOT catch everything. I had a really serious breach about a year ago and NOTHING picked it up. I only found it when I used HijackThis and read through the startup code to find that a commonly used DLL that is hooked into servicehost had been breached and was acting as a mailserver. No AV software or aqnything else could catch it.

You also have a possible loopback on one of your DNS which could cause a problem (64.246.140.96)

I would suggest (very strongly) that you should only have one DNS and one backup DNS, otherwise you are asking for trouble. Have you had a look at OpenDNS?

Also, some kind of software has intervened to add DNS to your IPv4 without your knowledge - naughty! Unless you put those extra ones there yourself, which I doubt.

Why not select optain DNS and IP automatically and then alter the router to decide which DNS you want. You can also then leave the router on automatic.

I did not put those DNS entries there... I have no control over what the router is sending me, it should just be passing the 2 from the modem. I do not want to use OpenDNS as I dislike ads on search pages and also have read that it is more suceptible to cache poisoning. I guess it is impossible to know for sure about malware but at this point it appears highly improbable, especially being on multiple platforms across the network.

[martok]

I had to reboot the router tonight, the internet had started crawling again. This time I only had 6 or 7 DNS addresses.

More Observations:
1. It appears that the extra DNS addresses may not be consistent across computers (but they are accumulating on all of them).

2. Upon a successful router reboot, all computers lose internet connectivity, which persists even after reconnecting to the router. It appears that the router does not pass any DNS addresses upon the initial connection. At this point Windows reports being connected to the internet, but domains do not resolve. An ipconfig /renew fixes this and gives the 2 original ISP DNS addresses.

I am going to try specifying the DNS values under Internet Connection Setup on the router to see if that prevents the buildup, and also should help reconnection after a router reboot.

EDIT: I added the DNS Entries in and rebooted, and unfortunately still had to ipconfig /renew before the addresses were passed to my computer. This is an inconvenience (albeit a small one) because everyone on the network has to renew whenever the router is rebooted.

[coppertrail]

You said you "Added the DNS Entries in the router"? Did you enter your ISP's DNS servers or OpenDNS, Google Public DNS, etc? You might want to try using the OpenDNS servers and see what happens.

[martok]

You said you "Added the DNS Entries in the router"? Did you enter your ISP's DNS servers or OpenDNS, Google Public DNS, etc? You might want to try using the OpenDNS servers and see what happens.

I used the ISP's DNS servers. As I stated above, I am a little leery about using services like OpenDNS, especially when my ISP's DNS works fine. I may look into that or Google Public DNS at some point but for now I am trying to keep things simple for the purpose of discovering the cause of the problem and/or a solution to it.

[Cobra]

Before changing your DNS servers you should benchmark over a period of days at different hours to see what are best for you.

In my case OpenDNS, Google or any other public DNS are slower than my ISP's.

You can use a benchmark app such as DNS Benchmark.