Windows need help with my dad's POS machine and internet

my dad's pc is being a pain lately. he's going to let me build him a new one after the new year's, but until then, he needs to get his pc fixed/running. right now he's using AOL (i know, i know) for his internet, and it's acting really weird. it will connect to the service and he can check/send email, but he can't go to any websites. this happened out of nowhere, and i can't figure out what's causing it. any ideas?

 

dns servers down maybe?

 

hrmm... not sure. i'm not there atm, so i can't check. actually, what would i need to do to check it anyways?

 

An act of God.


Seriously though, the easiest way to test it is to copy the IP of a remote location, such as your machine's IP, then open up the CMD, and go:

ping <YourIP>

If that works, you've got a solid connection.
Now go:

ping www.google.com

Or a similar DNS address, if it goes fine, then DNS is fine and your problem lies within your browser most likely. However if that ping doesn't work then either AOL's DNS is knackered, or your settings are wrong. Go into your network settings and check everything out according to teh DNS information AOL should have provided you with.

Good luck.

 

also:

try "ipconfig /flushdns" from the cmd prompt.