ping, Am I dreaming?

[lilelvis2000]

I just got a new laptop which is running Vista. I think I have a buggy router but wanted to confirm something first.

When I use the USB ADSL modem and I ping akmal I get the expect host not found error.
When I use my Solwise ADSL router and I do the same thing it resolves the address to 192.168.1.1 - the router.

Something is fishy here. is it windows or the router. I think its the router. I've sent a message to Solwise tech support, but surely this is a bug.

I noticed when in IE I entered akmal into the address bar, which normally performs a search for you. It always returned the router login page.

Am I right in thinking this is a router bug.

[MrsGoof]

is your router called 'akmail' ?

[lilelvis2000]

ah.....no.

I should clarify that it does the same with any single word I ping for. So if I ping goof, I get the router.

Its not that netBEUI stuff is it buggering things up is it?

[NoddY]

Your problem makes no sense to me.

Are you saying you can ping any host name and it resolves to 192.168.1.1?

It's possible the router cannot resolve DNS requests itself(1) and instead of responding correctly with "cannot find whatever - Non existent domain" it's saying "I'm whatever and i'm 192.168.1.1"

(1) Make sure the router knows about your ISP's DNS servers, either manually input them or check DHCP has fed it properly.

NetBEUI went out with the Ark, you shouldn't need it.

[lilelvis2000]

Sorry, this is now resolved. The solwise router has what it calls "easy connect" which allows PCs which are not using the router as their gateway to gain access to the internet. Disabling this solved my problem.

I've never heard of this technology before, but it sounds quite ingeniuos. As long as it doesn't muck up web search queries.