Static to Dynamic IP Address

[#1]

Good evening all, hoping this is the right place to ask about this.
I'm having difficulties connecting to several sites hosted on my (non-Plusnet) webspace, and I think I've narrowed it down to my internet connection being the culprit (I can access things just fine via a proxy site, but that's not ideal in the long term). I've raised a ticket about it, but was wondering if it might be something I can resolve myself.
One of the suggestions I've read has been to try getting my IP address renewed/replaced, and after a few unsuccessful rounds of unplugging my modem, router and so on I looked at my account settings to find that actually I'm on a static IP address. That'll be why it didn't work, then. 
It looks like there should be an option to switch back from static to dynamic IP address, but I can't find it to save my life. Am I missing something, or do I need to put in a request to get switched back to dynamic IP?
Many thanks in advance.

[#2]

if it is anywhere this is where it should be https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=myconnection

[#3]

I've got that page, but clicking on the Static IP graphic just takes me to a page that says "Yup, you've got a static IP!", and I can't see anything that offers the option to switch to a dynamic IP.

[#4]

I would think it is unlikely that your problem is related to whether you have a static or dynamic IP address.
It is more likely to be a problem related to the DNS work that PlusNet are currently doing.
Have you tried changing your DNS setting to something other than PlusNet ?. Try setting your DNS to use OpenDNS servers -
208.67.222.222  and  208.67.220.220

[#5]

Another thing to try would be to use the IP address of the site you are trying to visit, instead of it's usual name.
If this works then you know your connection is OK but the DNS lookup is at fault.
So as an example -
Instead of typing "www.bbc.co.uk" into your browser, type "212.58.251.195" instead, and hopefully you get the same result.
Just try using the address of the site you can't reach (directly), to see whether you can get through !

[#6]

I've switched to those DNS settings, with no discernable difference. I looked up the IP of the site I'm having trouble with, but apparently my hosting says there's no site configured at that address - I've got several domains on the same hosting, so I don't know if that's the reason or if there's something I need to tweak on my hosting's control panel. 
It seems to be a pretty specific problem - I've only found this issue with sites on my own hosting, pretty much everything else I've checked on the whole internet works fine. However, everyone else I've asked has no problem accessing those sites themselves.

[#7]

Is it possible that you have accidentally blocked the websites with your firewall ? - perhaps after receiving a pop-up saying "Do you want to accept connections from XYZ..." - or similar ?

[#8]

I don't think so, no - I'm using ZoneAlarm, and don't have any of the website-blocking options activated.

[#9]

Would it be possible for you to post the url so that we could see if it is isolated to you or not?
Also when you switched DNS assume you changed your router, did you run 'ipconfig /flushdns' at a command prompt?

[#10]

Yup - switched DNS settings, disconnected my modem, ran /flushdns, reconnected, no change.
The site I'm trying to access is http://darkplacescomic.com - the site loads alright in Firefox but takes a lot longer in Opera and doesn't load some of the time; the behind-the-scenes WordPress stuff takes even longer to load, and if/when it does it refuses to let me update any of the posts. Here's the error message that shows up, when it deigns to give me an error message at all:

Quote

ERROR The requested URL could not be retrieved While trying to retrieve the URL: http://www.darkplacescomic.com/wp-admin/page.php The following error was encountered:     * Read Timeout The system returned:     [No Error] A Timeout occurred while waiting to read data from the network. The network or server may be down or congested. Please retry your request. Generated Sun, 13 Dec 2009 00:40:54 GMT by pcl-iwfcache01.plus.net (squid)

The server's up and I can't see why the network might be congested for that specific site when I can get to other sites just fine, so... yeah. It's not a WordPress issue because a friend could view, edit and update posts with no problems, my hosting's support people couldn't find anything wrong, so I can only assume it's something to do with my internet connection.
I'm trying to refresh my IP address because it's one of the few things I haven't tried doing to resolve the problem yet. 

[#11]

I just tried the link and got the page instantly without any errors.
I was using Firefox 3.0.15 on Ubuntu 9.04 Linux to do the test, with PN DNS 212.159.6.9.
Could you borrow a laptop, or use another computer at home, to try an isolate whether it is your PC or your broadband connection ?

[#12]

Works fine on I.E 8 and Safari at my end

[#13]

Tried on a different machine -
Windows XP Home SP3, IE8, Zonealarm firewall, OpenDNS DNS configuration,
and again it worked perfectly !

[#14]

and Ive got XP SP3 on Firefox 3.5.5 with Zonealarm and AVG.  Loads both instantly, and standard PN DNS on THN AG1 - Value package

[#15]

Just tried it again on both my main machine and the house's other desktop, both are getting the same result - the front-of-house WordPress stuff loads up fine most of the time, but the WordPress dashboard is intermittently slow to load on Opera and Firefox (plus in Opera it seems to have issues loading the dashboard's CSS stylesheet). Trying to edit and update a post times out after submitting any changes. Both machines are running Windows XP SP3 with  Zonealarm and AVG, results are the same for Firefox, Opera, IE8.
Given that no one else has a problem accessing the site on their own connections but all my machines here are having the same issue, I can only suppose that it's something to do with my net connection. Using a proxy (unblockinfo.info) I can get everything to load just fine and can edit and update posts with no problem at all, which to my mind seems to support the idea that it's my net connection specifically that's got something up with it.
This is why I was looking to try getting my IP address switched to dynamic in case that fixed things - so is there any way to make that happen myself, or will I need to raise a support ticket?