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Are there DNS issues?

cookierocks
Dabbler
Posts: 17
Registered: ‎25-04-2013

Are there DNS issues?

My connection has been flakey all week, speeds seem OK (though have dropped from 74mb to 65-66mb in recent weeks)
From a browser POV, it seems to stall when trying to retrieve DNS info, or during streaming
Is this the same issue lots of people are experiencing or am I a special snowflake? Smiley
11 REPLIES 11
Chris
Legend
Posts: 17,724
Thanks: 600
Fixes: 169
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Are there DNS issues?

I'm not aware of any widespread reports of DNS issues similar to this. Do you have the DNS servers set to be obtained automatically or have you entered them manually?
Former Plusnet Staff member. Posts after 31st Jan 2020 are not on behalf of Plusnet.
30FTTC06
Pro
Posts: 2,286
Thanks: 108
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎18-02-2013

Re: Are there DNS issues?

Nothing seen from here in the last 7 days anyway, response times to various piublic servers look good.
[tt]Nameserver           Response Time (ms)
                    min/avg/max/stdev/retries
212.118.241.1       11.16/11.37/11.45/0.11/0
212.118.241.33       10.92/11.33/11.81/0.29/0
83.170.64.2         10.14/10.92/11.78/0.64/0
195.12.4.247         11.14/11.34/11.91/0.29/0
212.159.13.50       14.15/14.63/15.77/0.61/0
192.168.0.254       14.72/15.21/15.73/0.35/0
8.8.8.8             10.95/11.22/11.71/0.26/0
8.8.4.4             10.76/11.24/11.69/0.31/0
4.2.2.1             11.15/11.39/11.59/0.18/0
4.2.2.6             11.64/12.04/12.50/0.28/0
208.67.222.220       10.71/11.14/11.39/0.23/0
208.67.222.222       10.76/10.97/11.20/0.17/0[/tt]
southerner
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 632
Thanks: 65
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎27-11-2013

Re: Are there DNS issues?

My connection's been a bit icky this week as far as response to website address requests goes. I've hopped between PlusNet, Google and OpenDNS and didn't notice much difference. Not really sure what the problem is.
My Synch remains unchanged although my max ds throughput has consistently been down a few meg for a few weeks according to BTW checker.
benfranklin
Grafter
Posts: 68
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎31-03-2015

Re: Are there DNS issues?

There is an excellent freeware DNS benchmarking utility available from GRC.com, direct link here.
I was surprised to find that on my connection 25 to 30 publicly available DNS servers are reliably faster than Plusnet's own. It's a very handy piece of software, give it a go and see what results you get.
southerner
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 632
Thanks: 65
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎27-11-2013

Re: Are there DNS issues?

Thanks for the link benfranklin.
So it looks like it's saying PlusNet DNS is the fastest for me with Google DNS in 2nd place? (PlusNet DNS is configured on my router)
benfranklin
Grafter
Posts: 68
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎31-03-2015

Re: Are there DNS issues?

If you click on the conclusions tab at the top right it will give you a full post-game analysis, so to speak.
That is actually your router at the top of the list, rather than Plusnet's DNS servers per se.
[edited for clarity] Plusnet's DNS servers should have their own entries in the list somewhere too.
Terranova667
Pro
Posts: 1,511
Thanks: 125
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎19-02-2014

Re: Are there DNS issues?

Just ran that benchmark myself , waited the 35 mins for it to build the top 50 list that was beneficial to where I am and then ran the benchmark, found that the plusnet DNS servers i was using ranked 35 and 37 in the top 50   Shocked  34 DNS servers were faster than Plusnets so i changed to the top two servers that it listed and the difference is night and day, much more responsive and faster to load pages etc.  

southerner
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 632
Thanks: 65
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎27-11-2013

Re: Are there DNS issues?

I got conflicting results running it a few times but mostly I'm advised to use either Google or OpenDNS by these kind of benchmark programs.
I also find a slight gain putting the DNS server IPs in my TCP\IP settings rather than in my router settings.
benfranklin
Grafter
Posts: 68
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎31-03-2015

Re: Are there DNS issues?

I can't speak for your router, but mine (a D-Link DIR-655) gives me the option to specify my preferred DNS servers which are then set automatically on each client by DHCP. Very handy.
southerner
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 632
Thanks: 65
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎27-11-2013

Re: Are there DNS issues?

I have a TP-Link TL-WR841N that allows you to set DNS under DHCP settings. What I wonder is if I set DNS there will it tell each device to go straight to those DNS servers for name resolution (as if those DNS settings were set in TCP/IP on those devices manually) or will it cause them to go to the router to request the router goes to those DNS servers to perform name resolution and then the router goes back to the device with the lookup result?
benfranklin
Grafter
Posts: 68
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎31-03-2015

Re: Are there DNS issues?

Again, I can't speak for your router but mine has a setting called "enable DNS relay" which swaps between the two behaviours you just described depending on if it is enabled or disabled.