I am having browser problems. I cant get in to 3 sites i view regularly and i know the sites are not down coz my friend has been there to check. I have tried system restore and it doesnt fix the problem.
Any ideas?

i haven't got a clue. yet. try a ping: go start >all programs > accessories > command prompt.
type:- ping hostname, and press Enter -where hostname is the name of one of those sites [don't include the protocol]
eg ping www.coldcustard.com [see? no http stuff] [and i hope that eg aint a baaad site..i made it up].
type exit to quit.
Anyway, read what it returns. It's pretty self-explanatory. You can do this from the RUN box too, but the screen will not hang around once it's completed its task, so you have to speed read.

i haven't got a clue. yet. try a ping: go start >all programs > accessories > command prompt.
type:- ping hostname, and press Enter -where hostname is the name of one of those sites [don't include the protocol]
eg ping www.coldcustard.com [see? no http stuff] [and i hope that eg aint a baaad site..i made it up].
type exit to quit.
Anyway, read what it returns. It's pretty self-explanatory. You can do this from the RUN box too, but the screen will not hang around once it's completed its task, so you have to speed read.

Hi there, I did the ping test and got..
request timed out
request timed out
request timed out

ping statistics 144.140.78.199:
packets: sent =4, received = 0, lost =4 <100% loss>

Sigh.. some sites block pings - they see them as a waste of server time... of course MS is one of them... I tried a ping and got the same result as you, but then i put the IP in an IE address bar and it opened [dbweb with aust sports and clubs list].
Is this the URL you use? An IP..? http://144.140.78.199/Public/default.asp?assn=0
Or is there another plainlanguage URL? Because I cannot find the hostname...
I shall have to ponder this one...

Gerbil, Thanks for you help. Everything is fine this morning.

that's fine, robync... it would be a problem exterior to your pc most of the time anyway. Another interesting one to try, same method, same command line syntax as above is tracert [trace route]. With that one you can see where your ping travels on its way to the site. eg:-
tracert 144.140.78.199
-you close cmd window to stop it, or ctrl-C to stay in cmd window. give it a try for fun.

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