WiFi shows connected, the signal bars are full, but no website opens. In most of these cases your connection is actually alive — only DNS, the system that turns website names into numbers, is broken. This guide tests first, then fixes in the right order.
The WiFi icon can honestly say Connected while every website fails. That is because joining the WiFi and opening a website are two different jobs. Your PC talks to the router, the router talks to the internet, and DNS translates names like google.com into the numeric addresses the network really uses. When any one of those three steps breaks, the screen looks almost the same — which is why random fixes waste so much time. Below is the order a technician follows: one short test to find the broken step, then the fixes from the video — flush the DNS cache, renew the IP address, and set a working DNS server.
Open Command Prompt and run the three pings from the panel above, one by one. First ping your router — find its address by typing ipconfig and reading the Default Gateway line, usually something like 192.168.1.1. Then ping a public IP address such as ping 8.8.8.8. Finally ping a name with ping google.com.
Read the pattern honestly. If the gateway ping fails, your problem is the WiFi link or the router itself — DNS fixes will not help. If the gateway answers but the public IP fails, the internet line or the router's own connection is down. Only when numbers answer and names fail is it truly a DNS problem — and that is the case the rest of this guide fixes.
Before touching settings, give the router one clean restart. Switch it off, wait a full 30 seconds, and switch it back on. Routers run a small DNS relay service, and when that service hangs, every device in the house gets exactly this symptom — connected, but nothing resolves.
While the router boots, toggle WiFi off and on once on the PC. If the PC was connected to this network for weeks without a break, this also forces a fresh address lease and a fresh set of DNS servers from the router. Test one website before moving on — if it opens now, the fault was temporary and you are done.
Your PC remembers recent name lookups in a local cache so it does not have to ask again. When that cache holds a wrong or outdated answer, the same site fails again and again even though the network is fine. The video clears this with three commands, in this order. Open Command Prompt as administrator, then run:
ipconfig /flushdns — empties the saved name lookups. You should see the line Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache.ipconfig /release — gives up the current IP address. The connection drops for a few seconds; that is normal.ipconfig /renew — asks the router for a fresh address and, with it, a fresh set of DNS servers.Order matters: flush first so old answers cannot survive, then renew so the PC rebuilds its network information from the router instead of from memory. Test a couple of websites now — for a large share of these complaints, this is the fix that works.
If the test still fails, the DNS server your PC is asking is itself broken or unreachable — very common when the ISP's default resolver is having a bad day. The video replaces it with Google DNS, a large public resolver. On Windows 11:
8.8.8.8 Alternate DNS: 8.8.4.4, then SaveCloudflare's pair, 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1, works the same way. Be clear about what this change does: it only changes who answers your name lookups. It does not repair a dead line, and it does not raise your download speed — it simply routes around a resolver that was failing you.
Two heavier resets remain, and they are worth trying before anything drastic like reinstalling Windows — the video's whole point is that this problem never needs a reinstall. First, restart the DNS Client service: press Windows + R, type services.msc, find DNS Client and restart it if the option is offered.
netsh winsock resetnetsh int ip resetThe last resort inside Windows is Settings → Network and internet → Advanced network settings → Network reset. It works, but know the cost before you click: it removes saved WiFi networks and passwords and uninstalls VPN software, so you will reconnect to everything by hand.
ping 8.8.8.8 also fails in step 1, DNS is not your problem at all — the line or the router's internet side is down, and no DNS setting can fix that. Check the router's internet light and, if it stays red, call your ISP instead of changing settings.
See every step on a real Windows PC — the tests, the commands and the DNS change, in order.
▶️ Watch Full VideoConnected only means your PC has joined the router's network. Opening a website also needs a working path to the internet and a working DNS server to translate the site's name into an address. When DNS fails, the connection looks healthy but every name lookup fails, so pages never load.
Either pair is a reasonable choice. Google DNS is 8.8.8.8 with 8.8.4.4 as the alternate, and Cloudflare is 1.1.1.1 with 1.0.0.1. Both are large, free public resolvers. Set one pair, run the three ping test again, and keep whichever setup passes cleanly on your connection.
Not in the way most people hope. Your download speed is fixed by your line and plan, and DNS plays no part in it. Pages can feel snappier when you replace a slow or broken resolver, because names resolve correctly on the first attempt — but that is fixing a fault, not adding speed.