[clue-tech] DNS lookups take a looooooong time

[Peter Kuykendall]

katanacb at comcast.net wrote:
>> Hi Chris -
>>
>> I have a similar setup with a different model of Netgear wireless 
>> router.  I found that 1 had 2 separate DNS problems:
>>
>> 1 - The Netgear won't consistently forward the DNS requests from the LAN 
>> to the WAN.  In my case it seems to be a bug in the firmware.  It's a 
>> hassle because I have to manually configure my machines to use a 
>> different DNS server, since I can't get the router to send anything to 
>> them except for 192.168.15.1 (its address).
..
..
> I'm curious about point #1, as I wonder if that's what I am seeing.  I've read some things on the internet that this is a problem for Netgear sometimes ... but of course there is never any solution listed to the problem.  I'm also thinking about taking the router back to MicroCenter but darn if I can't find my recept (I've not had the thing more than 30 days tho).  If they won't take it back I'm afraid I'll have to come up with another solution ...  or else I've just bought a $150 brick :(
> 
> -Chris

My wording wasn't very clear.  What happens is that during the DHCP 
setup, the Netgear tells the local PC to use 192.168.15.1 as its DNS 
server.  If you override that in the local PC, and force it to use 
4.2.2.1 instead, then the Netgear will dutifully route those packets out 
to 4.2.2.1, and the local PC will have no DNS problems.

If you are ambitious you can use a different PC as a DHCP server, and 
configure it to tell all the PCs signing on to use 4.2.2.1.  That will 
avoid having to reconfigure them when they sign on.

So, the Netgear has this irritating bug, but it's far from being a brick.

I suspect that the 10-20 second delay is the PC's OS giving up on the 
first DNS request, then issuing another one after a 10-20 second timeout.

Actually it will take less time to figure this out using Wireshark than 
it has taken to write about it.  Please let us know what this problem 
turns out to be.  If it's not the known Netgear DNS bug then I'd like to 
know what else to look out for. :)