Assuming that nothing has changed with my system, and that there are
no problems with my system, why is it that sometimes only a few
webpages will display, but then after several minutes wait, everything
works again?  For instance, the webpage I default to is google.  When
I started up Internet explorer 5x, it errored-out to the no page found
page.
I open and close the window until google comes up all right, but
still other pages would not display, Best Buy would but MSN would not,
etc.  Then, barely two minutes later and everything works, and as fast
as usual.  I have a Dell 262 GHz(533 NHz bus), 512k of Rambus(PC800),
40 gig HD running WindowsXP. My connection is a 1.5 MBits DSL through
SBC Ameritech.  Where should I look, my PC, my physical lines, my DSL
provider, or just be patient?  Whoever you are, thanks for your help.

It sounds like a connectivity problem, with DNS lookup
failure a possible specific problem.  This means that
it is probably centered with your DSL provider.

Hi pathosman,
Windows has a default "time out" value when it try to connect to a
site.  If a certain time has passed without receiving a response from
a server, the computer will assume that the server is offline.  Your
connection might be configured with a time out value that is too slow.
Try running the test here: http://www.dslreports.com/tweaks/ to see if
your computer is configured for broadband.

I have to agree with denco. It sounds like a classic DNS lookup
problem with your DSL ISP. I would contact them to see if they're
having problems with their DNS round-robin or if maybe one of their
main DNS servers is offline. There's a few things you can do to check
the problem. When the service IS working correctly, you can ping the
web addresses to get their IP address, then when you're having
problems connecting, try entering the IP into the URL address bar and
see if the site comes up that way. If it does, DNS is almost
definitely your problem. Another thing you can do is check the IP
address settings for your machine (I assume you're using DHCP) and get
the IP addresses for your primary and secondary DNS servers. When
you're having problems, see if you can ping both of them successfully.