Invalid IP resolving to hostname; Please help resolve

[Modify_inc]

Hey guys!

I have a small workgroup at home of about 4 or 5 computers. All the PC's, notebooks are running W7. I have one PC that I use as my "always on PC", with all my media and resources I use on it. The NetBIOS or computer name assigned to it is mediapc with a static IP of 192.168.254.150. All my other desktop PC's, excluding the notebooks, have a static IP also.

The problem is more annoying then anything, and thus I only work on it intermittently. Today I decided to post after wasting much of another day attempting to resolve the issue.

The problem is accessing my mediapc from any of my other computers while using the computer name, "mediapc". If I use the static IP assigned above, there is no problems. Everything works, RDP, Dameware, Telnet, SSH, Ping,Tracert, etc. If I use the computer name "mediapc" then it fails with an unreachable host error or similar. The reason it fails is because somewhere in my network or in the mediapc itself, it wants to resolve the "mediapc" name to an unknown IP of 192.168.254.47. I have no idea where this is coming from, but has been an issue for months now.

Now with this said, I can still share files and access the mediapc using the name in a UNC syntax, like //mediapc/data works fine or directly clicking on the mediapc share under Network works also. If I Ping mediapc from any other PC than itself, it fails with the 254.47 IP. If I try to use any remote connection software and use the name mediapc, it fails to connect.

This is what I know and have tested:

1. Adding a host entry to all the client computers works but does not fix the root of the problem.

2. nslookup mediapc reports the wrong IP of 254.47

3. Remote connections as I mentioned above fail because the name is resolving to an invalid IP.

4. Pinging mediapc from itself, displays the correct IP of 254.150, although I have to use the -4 parameter.

5. Arp -a on all PCs report correct IP of 254.150 with the correct MAC address. (There is no 254.47 listed)

6. NBTstat -a mediapc reports correctly and shows the correct MAC address.

7. Network shares work correctly from and to the mediapc without issue. No access problems.

8. I have deleted all arp entries and flushed the dns with no change.

9. MS mentions to change order of the Bindings of the adapters, yet I only have one Local Area Connection.

Any suggestions to where this 192.168.254.47 entry is coming from and most of how, how to delete it!

Not sure if relevant but my router is a ZyXel NBG4615 which I have reset on numerous occasions so wouldn't think it would be an issue.
Thanks
Mike

 

[inzone]

Are you using a router to connect the computersin your network or are you using a switch.

 

[Modify_inc]

I'm using a router as I mentioned in the closing of my post.

 

[Modify_inc]

any suggestions?

 

[icefire900]

I am assuming this is happening to all other devices on the network besides mediapc.
If that is the case an ipconfig /all should determine what device is handling the DNS, possibly the ZyXel device. If you go into the management page, there may be a DNS entry of some type accidently set up.

Worth a shot to look there.

 

[Modify_inc]

I am assuming this is happening to all other devices on the network besides mediapc.
If that is the case an ipconfig /all should determine what device is handling the DNS, possibly the ZyXel device. If you go into the management page, there may be a DNS entry of some type accidently set up.

Worth a shot to look there.

No, it only happens when trying to access mediapc as I stated in my post. I can connect to the other pcs on the network using their names without issue. Using mediapc resolves to the wrong ip address of 192.168.254.47 when I explicitly have it set to an ip of 192.168.254.150. Hence why connections to mediapc fail, because it is trying to resolve an invalid and nonexistence ip address on my network.

Thanks

 

[Hawkeye22]

Check your hosts file as it will override DNS. Also try:

ipconfig /flushdns

on any machines resolving incorrectly.

 

[Modify_inc]

Check your hosts file as it will override DNS. Also try:

ipconfig /flushdns

on any machines resolving incorrectly.

I've already tried those as mentioned in # 1 and #8.

I couldn't remember if I did the flushdns on the affected computer or not so I did it again.

I then tried to ping mediapc using name "mediapc", and here is the failed output:

Pinging mediapc.workgroup [192.168.254.48] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.254.35: Destination host unreachable.
Ping statistics for 192.168.254.48:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss)

I'm curious why my other computers list a DNS Suffix Search List: workgroup when doing a ipconfig /all
and the mediapc doesn't even list the entry for DNS Suffix Search List. It does not exist.

Could that be at the root of the problem?

 

[Modify_inc]

I was finally able to fix the problem just now by changing the "First DNS Server" in my router to "From ISP". Before I had "DNS Relay", which is what I prefer. I tried going back to DNS Relay and the problem was immediately present again when I did a quick ping. So it looks like I will have to keep it on From ISP until I or someone can figure out why the DNS Relay has the wrong IP for my mediapc.

 

[danno3]

I'm having a similar problem, except I'm unable to properly resolve any local computer properly and I've tried setting the router to 'From ISP' and 'DNS Relay'. Neither works. Normally, when a computer on the local network is pinged by name, it would resolve to a local IP (in my case 10.0.1.x). Under normal cirumstances, when an nslookup is performed on a local computer, nslookup would show 'server: unknown', but still show the DNS server IP (the router).

In this case, when I attempt to ping other local machines by name, the IP address shows up as a real, public IP. NSlookup shows a DNS server as dns-cac-lb-01.rr.com (a roadrunner.com DNS server). NSlookup shows a suffix behind the local computer name, and that's being supplied by the router. There's NO option to remove the 'domain name' setting from the router config.

I tried setting secondary DNS on router to 'none' (it was previously set to 'From ISP') and did ipconfig /flushdns, but that had no effect.

I've tried hardware resets on the router, and tried to force a rewrite of the DNS entry by ipconfig /registerdns - no effect.

 

[danno3]

I gave up trying to solve this problem and put the bridged router/modem from TWC (Arris TG862g) back into service. Of course, the problem went away. I can only conclude that the Engenius EVR100 router was defective (I had also previously done a hardware reset of the router and did a firmware update) without success.