I’ve recently just upgraded to the TP-Link TD-W8960N Wireless-N ADSL Gateway from my 2Wire 2700HGV-E Mio Box. When i first installed it, performance was good. The startup time was quick from first power on, taking only <60 secs to enable the wireless radio and establish DSL connection. Gone are also the random DSL line disconnection problem that i had when using the Mio box. It was very frustrating having to reboot the Mio box every time the DSL light goes “red”. It sorta just hangs. So it appears that most of my problems went away, until my mate started complaining about his W8960N having problems when more than one wireless machine is connected, particularly his iPhone.

I didn’t experience this problem myself — all the 5 devices in my house are on wireless, and they worked flawlessly. But something went wrong when i made a slight change to my router’s DNS proxy hostname, and poof — my DNS stopped working. DHCP would lease out all the correct settings, so it wasn’t a DHCP problem. I tested with the standard ping test and dig lookups:

Ping to SingNet DNS:

eddie-tans-macbook:~ eddie$ ping 165.21.83.88

PING 165.21.83.88 (165.21.83.88): 56 data bytes

64 bytes from 165.21.83.88: icmp_seq=0 ttl=55 time=10.139 ms

64 bytes from 165.21.83.88: icmp_seq=1 ttl=55 time=8.889 ms

That looked ok. DSL line appears to be working normally.

Checking DNS lookups on the router address:

eddie-tans-macbook:~ eddie$ dig @192.168.1.254 www.singtel.com
eddie-tans-macbook:~ eddie$ dig @192.168.1.254 www.singtel.com

; <<>> DiG 9.4.3-P3 <<>> @192.168.1.254 www.singtel.com

; (1 server found)

;; global options:  printcmd

;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached


Ahh.. DNS lookups were timing out.


eddie-tans-macbook:~ eddie$ dig @165.21.83.88 www.singtel.com

; <<>> DiG 9.4.3-P3 <<>> @165.21.83.88 www.singtel.com

; (1 server found)

;; global options:  printcmd

;; Got answer:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 29837

;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:

;www.singtel.com.		IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:

www.singtel.com.	318	IN	A	203.208.248.10


Dig @SingNet DNS resolves www.singtel.com correctly. So when i set my Mac Book’s DNS manually to include 165.21.83.88, my webpages resolves properly, but experiences problem with the default DNS leased by out the DHCP server (192.168.1.254).


So for some reason the DNS server on the router when there are multiple clients connected to it. After mucking around for a bit, i think i found the fix to the problem.


To work around this problem, make sure you have your LAN setup properly check under Advanced Setup -> LAN and “Enable DHCP Server” is checked. Fill in your start and end address (if unsure, just fill in 192.168.1.100 for Start IP Address, and 192.168.1.200 for End IP Address)


Next, go to Advanced Setup -> DNS -> DNS Server and see that “Obtain DNS info from a WAN interface:” is selected and make sure you choose your WAN interface from the dropdown list.


Lastly this is where i was stucked. Under Advanced Setup -> DNS Proxy, checked Enabled or disable DNS Proxy, under “Hostname” key in your router’s IP address, which should be 192.168.1.1 by default. (mine was 192.168.1.254). For the “Domain name of the LAN network“, you may key in any name that you fancy. Then click Save/Apply.


And viola! For some reason, this appears to work around the problem.