Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Windows 8 does not load web sites correctly - solution

I recently started using a Windows 8 laptop, and installed the suggested Windows 8.1 version in to it. For a brief moment everything seemed to be fine, until I noticed that from time to time some web sites did not load at all or loaded only partially, like the CSS styles were missing or some Flash content was missing. The web site loading succeeded randomly: the same site could load nicely after first reload but not anymore after second reload.

I spent hours trying to diagnose the problem and finally found the solution: change or add the DNS servers from your network card settings to use Google DNS servers. Crazy, I know, but it worked for me.

What is really strange is that I already had the Google DNS servers in my wireless D-Link router's settings. This was not enough on my Windows 8.1 laptop, I really had to add the DNS servers directly to the wireless network card settings! Maybe someone could explain to me how this can change the situation, I mean, what is the effective difference between DNS settings on the router and on the network card, if the servers are same (other than just the value location)?

Links:
https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using
http://www.eightforums.com/browsers-mail/33778-windows-8-1-not-loading-some-random-websites-correctly-2.html

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