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 Wednesday, 20 August 2008
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Why can't I access any websites?

If you are having trouble accessing a website and are receiving an error message such as "Page cannot be displayed" or "Website not responding", try the following steps:

Try again using the Refresh button, the small button that looks like a circular arrow on your toolbar to the left of the white address bar. If the problem continues, one of the following may be the cause.

Your modem router settings are incorrect

If you are having problems connecting to secure sites like MSN, Online banking, Ebay and others you may need to change the MTU size on your modem router.

Note: This step is for Netgear modem router users only. If you connect to the internet with any other modem router (eg Thomson SpeedTouch), please skip this step.

To set the MTU size on the Netgear modem router:

1. Click Start and Run.
2. In the run box type http://192.168.0.1
3. Enter the user name and password.
Note: By default, the user name is admin and the password is password. If you ever changed these login details please enter the new user name and password.
4. In the menu on the left, under Advanced, click WAN Setup.
5. Change the MTU Size to 1400 and click Apply.


The web address is incorrect:

Check that the web address is typed in correctly. A typical web address looks like: http://www.xyz.co.uk or http://www.xyz.com/abc.html. Try accessing the site from another computer or ask someone else to try for you. If they can access the site without any problem then the cause of the difficulty is likely to be with the machine you are using.

You need add-ins to view the site:

Check if the site requires any add-ins to operate (such as Flash) and that you have a suitable version of the element needed.

The website is busy or undergoing maintenance:

Most websites are periodically unavailable because of maintenance or upgrades being carried out on their server. Certain sites can also become very busy, especially during peak hours. The only thing you can do in either case is to try again later. (Remember that international websites can have different peak times, depending on their time zone.)

The website no longer exists:

As the internet evolves, thousands of websites appear and disappear every day. People move to other jobs, companies go out of business and web pages move to other servers. When a web page is moved, a notice is usually left at the old web address informing people of the move, but this is not always the case.

If the above advice does not solve the problem, try the troubleshooting steps on the right of this page.


Last Updated: Friday, 1 February 2008, 11:09 GMT