Diagnosing connection issue

[tmetro-blu-5a1Jt6qxUNc at public.gmane.org (Tom Metro)]

edwardp-jjFNsPSvq+iXDw4h08c5KA at public.gmane.org wrote:
> What remains a mystery...I could not call up the modem
> and router status screens in the browsers using their IP addresses
> (no DNS used), yet both of them sent back immediate ping responses...

While unlikely, especially with two appliances involved, it is possible
that the web interface on them references public URLs, say for images,
that are then being blocked by DNS or general WAN connectivity issues.

You can inspect the returned HTML on those devices to see if that is the
case.

There are other possibilities, like proxy settings, or browser plugins
that might "phone home" to a public site on each connection request. But
with multiple browsers and OSs, this is even more unlikely.

Web access filtering built-in to a router, if it depends on a public
site to look up information about a URL, might also explain it. But
didn't you say you had this problem both before and after switching routers?

It may be time to break out a packet sniffer and see what's really going on.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/