Unable to contact the Domain Name Server

[#1]

Title pretty much says it all.
Router is failing to connect to both PN & OpenDNS servers and hence unable to browse internet/receive emails etc.
All was working on Monday - left router on and went away for a few days and unable to connect.  Tried rebooting router with settings left at auto.  Have manually input both OpenDNS and PN settings and failed to work.
Any ideas anyone?

[#2]

How do you know the router cannot connect to the DNS?
Please describe the symptoms you are seeing in more detail, what you have said so far doesn't at first glance seem an accurate assessment.

[#3]

Quite simply,
I couldn't connect to any sites.
Logged into router - showed DSL link as up and then in the diagnostics all were up apart from
"DNS Communication - Unable to contact Domain Name Server"
I've checked this morning before leaving for work and this is now showing as "up" but internet is still not working.

[#4]

OK, I suspect the error message was a symptom, not the cause.
from a command window can you

ping news.bbc.co.uk

If no, try

ping 212.58.244.57

and then post the results here.

[#5]

Not at the moment as at work,
but the ping and a tracert and a nslookup were all not working last night.

[#6]

OK, but the responses would be useful to help diagnose the problem.
Also do trace routes to the same and post them here.

[#7]

Quote

Ping request could not find host news.bc.co.uk. Please check the name and try again

Quote

Pinging 212.57.244.57 with 32 bytes of data: Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out.

Tracert gives

Quote

1   1 ms    1 ms   <1 ms home [192.168.2.254] 2   *            *          *           Request timed out. 3   *            *          *           Request timed out.

and so on so forth.
I've given the router a hardware reset as well.  
Should I be worried about the fact that my router is not showing a MAC Address in the system summary?

[#8]

OK, so it's not a DNS issue.
Your router is not routing, traffic is either not leaving your router, or it is not arriving at Plusnet.
A missing MAC address would be a problem yes.

[#9]

Any suggestions then?
I'm noting that the event log does appear to be suggesting that there is a problem as I'm getting constant
ppp0: connection lost, reconnecting
messages.
I'm guessing I need an alternative router to test?

[#10]

Well see if you can put a MAC address into the router, many allow you to set them manually.  You will not get any connection without one.
But loosing its MAC address does imply a faulty a router, so yeah, a replacement, at least temporary would be a good idea.

[#11]

no joy with alternative router either. have raised fault with pn.

[#12]

Turns out it all rectified itself at 11pm last night.  So far PN seem to suggest that it was a line problem, but I've requested more info.