Trouble with DNS settings

So, since I've been home from school, I've been having issues with my internet. It keeps disconnecting from the Wifi. I'm pretty sure that it isn't a malware issue, since it only occurs on my home wifi, and my DNS settings always seem to be messed up when I go back to live on campus and use their internet. This DNS setting mix up was the reason a few months back that I came to the forums looking for malware removal, since the DNS settings wouldn't allow me to access my e-mail until I put them back to normal manually.

My current problem at home is probably something to do with my DNS settings, as on Chrome it gives me an error message when the internet goes out saying DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NO_INTERNET or DNS_PROBE_STARTED presumably from the same issue. My computer still seems to be able to find and recognize the network, but it has no internet connectivity for several minutes. It usually lasts anywhere between 5-10 minutes, so resetting the router, even if it actually worked and solved the problem, would be a waste of time as the non-connectivity lasts just about as long as it would take to get up and reset the router.

This has caused me quite a lot of issues recently, especially when I'm trying to use what little free time I have in my day to do some online gaming. It's pretty much impossible to do anything in that regard because the time inbetween the loss of connection can be a maximum of 3 hours or a minimum 5 minutes.

If there is any information that you need (my ISP, router specs/model, OS, etc.) please feel free to ask.

 

Ok, so after I posted over the weekend, I figured I could include some more pertinent information, including what I've been trying to do to fix my issue on my own.

I looked up several guides about changing my DNS settings to varying settings, all of which kept me from being able to access the internet at all. Most of them involved going into the DNS settings and changing it from detect automatically to use a manually entered setting, none of which worked correctly.

Beyond that, since DNS settings and networking is not my specialty, I figured that I would leave it to the professionals, I.E. the pretty competent support staff that I've seen around this forum.

I hope that this information is useful in getting to the bottom of this... I do have a pretty bad ISP (being CenturyLink), and I hope that's not the issue since someone else pays for the internet, and I'm going to be moving out in a few months so... no real point in changing it to something more expensive just to cancel after a few months when I stop paying the difference. :/

 

Try Tweaking.com - Windows Repair.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/tweaking_com_windows_repair.html

If you are sure nothing else is messed up, go straight to the Start Repairs tab and click Start.
Click Unselect All.
Check the box Repair Winsock & DNS Cache.
Click Start Repairs.
Restart the PC.

 

If the above does not work, you can always keep it on automatic.

Then when you switch places, you can run the following commands:

ipconfig /release <--- Releases your ip to the DHCP server (do this before you leave [not sure on time of lease for ip at each place but running this helps])
ipconfig /renew <---DHCP server gives you a new IP (new location)
ipconfig /registerdns <---Forces your computer to register with the DNS server

This is the easiest. I could post the powershell equivalent but it is sadly more complicated since it uses wmi controls.