I'm running Windows XP SP2 Home, I can ping local computers by name or
IP, can ping remote computers (i.e. the other side of the router) by ip
addresses but host names (see below). I can browse the local network
but cannot access websites either by host name or IP. Other computers
on same network with similar settings work fine. The computer was
previously connected to a university network which may have something
to do with it. DHCP doesn't work so I have manually assigned the
addresses. I have tried "ipconfig /flushdns" with no success.

Any help much appreicated.

The following may be useful: (bits after "<--" are comments)

C:\>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Rich
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : IEEE 802.11g Wireless
Cardbus/PCI Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : XXX <-- removed
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.20
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.0.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.2
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.2

C:\>ping yahoo.com
Ping request could not find host yahoo.com. Please check the name and
try again.


C:\>ping 66.94.234.13 <-- IP address of yahoo.com

Pinging °ÿ with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=238ms TTL=48
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=191ms TTL=48
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=225ms TTL=48
Reply from 66.94.234.13: bytes=32 time=189ms TTL=48

Ping statistics for:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 189ms, Maximum = 238ms, Average = 210ms

C:\>ping 10.0.0.2 <-- IP address of router

Pinging °ÿ with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 10.0.0.2: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 10.0.0.2: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 10.0.0.2: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 10.0.0.2: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 2ms, Maximum = 3ms, Average = 2ms

C:\>ping themisto <-- name of computer on local network

Pinging themisto [°ÿ] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 10.0.0.8: bytes=32 time=102ms TTL=128
Reply from 10.0.0.8: bytes=32 time=28ms TTL=128
Reply from 10.0.0.8: bytes=32 time=50ms TTL=128
Reply from 10.0.0.8: bytes=32 time=72ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for :
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 28ms, Maximum = 102ms, Average = 63ms

I can see that you can ping your router (10.0.0.2) but can you ping the
DNS server provided by your ISP? Also, you may want to check your
router config to make sure it is pulling a DNS server from the ISP.

The router's working fine (all other computers on the network are
behaving as usual) and yes I can ping the ISP's DNS server by IP but
not by hostname - just like any other wan-side computer. Hmmm.

Can you make a FTP connection or telnet to the DNS server? Sounds to me
like you aren't able to connect to it. I would try resetting TCP/IP. To
do so run the following in the command line:

netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt

If that doesn't fix it you could have a socket error. There are lots of
walkthroughs to fix it if that is the case. Just do a Google search for
it. Let me know what you find out.

I cannot ftp using either ip or host name - both give me "unknown
host". I tried the reset thing and it didn't say anything but it left
lots of indecipherable stuff in resetlog.txt - would it be helpful to
anyone to post it here? I did a search for 'socket error fix xp' and
happened accross this tool which magically made everything work!

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/winsockxpfix.html

Highly recommended. Thanks for the help.

That's great, I'm glad you were able to get the issue corrected.