W2K -> DNS problem

[ich]

I'm having DNS problems with my W2K machine - I can ping IP addresses in the web, but the computer doesn't appear to even attempt resolution of URL's.
I have a Linksys router performing NAT and DHCP services, but it is apparently working because the computer I'm on right now is connected the the net through the same router.
Running ipconfig/all at a command prompt shows that DHCP is correctly providing the computer an internal IP address and legitimate DNS servers, I can ping the DNS servers and other sites that I happen to have the IP addresses of, but when I ping a URL (ie: www.tomicich.com) or attempt to open one in my web browser, I get host unreachable immediately with no delay at all.
This is the third time this has happened, the first two times I ended up restoring a Ghost image after smacking it around for a day or two but that's not an option this time 'cause there are some system changes I don't want to reconstruct. Both previous times I tried changing and restoring, then pulling and replacing TCP/IP, and eventually pulling all protocols prior to pulling and replacing the adapter.
I'm at a loss now and would appreciate any helpful suggestions.

 

[brianF]

You might want to look here http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/win2k.htm

quite a bit of info on 2k network stuff

 

[ich]

I'm still going over the info on the site recommended by brianF but I'm not finding anything helpful so far.
I do have something else funky to report though: just for grins, even though the computer is apparently picking up it's IP and DNS from the router properly, I entered ipconfig/renew at the command prompt I received an error message:

The following error occurred when renewing adapter Local Area Connection: An operation was attempted on something that is not a socket.

- ??
It looks to me like the stack is corrupted. I'm going to try pulling all protocols again and swap out the NIC for a different one to force it to load from scratch again. I'll let you guys know what happens...
KT

 

[ich]

I pulled TCP/IP and uninstalled the 3C905 in Device Manager, then shut it down, swapped the card for a 3C900, rebooted, added IP, now everything's fine.
It's not the end of the world since the only other computers on my home LAN don't have 100Mbps cards, but what a pain. I'm still puzzled about what's caused this also. Anyone have any similar problems?
Maybe I'll pull the 900 and put back the 905 to see if I start having the same problems in a couple days.
KT

 

[brianF]

Well if you wondering why the card won't run at 100 mps we had quite a bit of trouble with an intel card, no matter what if would not work at 100mps. finally after all said and done the cable was bad, replaced the cable and reset the card for 100 and it took right off.
Cable was good enough for 10mps but would just roll over and die if we tried to run it at 100.

 

[ich]

Yeah I've had cabling issues preventing 100Base from working before. What I meant in my post was that I went from a 10/100 card to a 10 Base T card just so it would be forced to take a fresh look instead of "remembering" stuff from the old card. But I don't care 'cause it was the only one on my LAN that was 100 Base T capable.
We've always made our own patch cables at work under the premise that as long as both ends were wired the same you were fine - except that, once 100bT stuff started coming down in price, we found that all patch cables that we had made ourselves were only capable of 10bT - however, once we lopped of the ends and wired them according to the diagram printed on every box o' cable I've ever seen, we were cruising at 100. Something to do with current causing inducted magnetic fields that reinforce the signal on adjacent wires. I actually read up on it at the time, it's much too long to go into here. If I find a good link, I'll post it.
10 base T is pretty forgiving, 100 base isn't - just makes me wonder how picky gigabit is.
KT