For months now whenever I open IE(11) nothing on the Internet comes up and I get an error message and a chance to diagnose. When I run the Windows Diagnostic tool, the problem invariably comes back with "The DNS Server isn't responding". Retrying any web address yields the same result until about 2 minutes have elapsed and then all is fine and remains that way throughout the session. But with no activity for an hour or so and it's back to same drill trying to get to new webpages.
My Westfal 9100EM router (yep, it's old) is set to automatically obtain the DNS address and they come up as 68.238.96.12 and 68.238.64.12.
Questions: (1) is this a router issue (I suspect not), (2) will Verizon's 100 buck router solve the problem absolutely, (3) is Verizon experiencing continued DNS issues or (4) what other options are available to me?
I tried changing the DNS to go to some OpenDNS addresses I found somewhere, but the issue persisted, albeit not as much. However, a caveat to that is that I really didn't give it very long a try (a few hours); I've read that it can take up to 24 hrs for DNS changes to "propagate" thru the net. Should I try longer? Should I try other companies DNS addresses? Several months ago, I was referred to an application that would same several dozen DNS addresses and provide timing and other metrics back for gauging possible DNS addresses, but I can't locate that any longer.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks