Cannot Get Internet Connection; Network Diagnostics All Over the Place

Let me take a second and explain how the internet works - hopefully this will help you understand so when I explain how you can correct some of the issues it'll help.

Everything connected to the internet has an IP address. At your house, it's your cable modem (or DSL modem). Connected to that usually is a router (or it can be build into the cable modem).

When you power up your cable modem, it queries the cable company, gets an IP address, and the cable companies DNS servers which is stores. When your router powers up, it queries the cable modem, copies those DNS servers, and sits and listens for devices to hand out internal IP addresses - along with those same DNS numbers.

Those DNS numbers are important. Everything on the internet runs on numbers, but people work better with names. So - you type in a name, the request goes to the DNS servers IP numbers you have stored from the cable company, the DNS server responds with the actual IP numbers, then your computer starts talking to those IP numbers through the router, through the cable modem, and out on the internet.

So - when you have a problem and your computer isn't connected to the internet, there can be a problem with the computer network settings (it doesn't have an IP address), the router (wires might be bad, or router might be turned off or locked up (it runs a mini-operating system and can crash sometimes), the cable modem (turned off, bad wires/connections), or the connection from the cable modem to the local cable box, or to the actual cable company itself. Lots of places to go wrong. Assuming everything is ok up to your cable modem usually it's a wiring issue, or you don't have an IP address. This is usually pretty easy to fix - a reboot can usually correct it, or troubleshoot which you did and that fixed it.

Now, if you are connected to the internet, and get that response 'DNS not responding', that means that the DNS server (computer) that the cable company gave you the IP address for isn't working right. You obviously have no control over that computer, but you DO have control over which DNS server you use. There are lots of public DNS servers out there, the easiest one is Googles - their two main DNS servers are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 - I actually set them in my router config as the default DNS and I never seem to ever have DNS server issues (google IS pretty good at running hardware after all).

So - to fix a DNS issue - you could reboot your cable modem (which would update your DNS entries if they changed at the cable company), and your router, and reconnect to the router. Or you can change it in your computer.

Search bar -> type 'control panel' -> launch control panel.
Network and sharing center -> in top left 'change adapter settings' -> select the appropriate network adapter -> right click - 'properties'
Networking tab -> select Internet Protocol v4 - click 'properties'
Select 'use following DNS server addresses' - and change DNS1 and DNS2 to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

Hit ok and close that. Hit ok and close the other dialog box. You shouldn't need to restart the computer - you may need to restart the browser though.