connected to net yet cant surf

[jameshanley39]

going to get sleep now its 4.00 a.m here.will come back later

I can`t really help you much. But let`s establish a few things.

Because really, your original question of you can connect to the internet but not surf. Should be answered with a joke, that you need a surfing machine.

When you connect up with windows. Areyou connected automatically, or do you log into your ISP through windows?

It seems that you are not connected to the internet. And your router is one that logs in automatically. Has its independent power source(unlike a PCI DSL or USB DSL one). Accepts a user/pass when you http to it.

Has a few ports on it. Try connecting another machine to it. A windows machine. Does that have internet access?

Funnily enough. I just booted a knoppix CD and found no internet access! (I am not too bothered by that right now though. i can ssh to a linux box. I don`t really want linux for browsing the web). I have LAN access. Another machine running windows connects to the router and accesses the internet. So the router is connected to the internet.

This is the test you should do. See if the router is connected to the internet. Go to something like http://192.168.0.1 and see if it says connected to the internet. disconnect, connect. may have to refresh the screen.
or easier, connect another machine to the router. Or try without the knoppix cd. see if you can browse the web.

[dram]

Some routers, typically the common windows/mac-centric soho types, are reputed to play a little loose with the real internet dns specifications.

One way to ensure that the router doesn't mess around with dns is to place your isp's primary and backup dns nameservers in the router's setup page. If you don't know your isp's dns addresses, there are alternates like those seen at the bottom of opendns.com

After you put your addresses into the router itself, just restart networking, or reboot your computer.

I tore my hair out for years manually configuring dhclient.conf, dhcp3.conf, resolv.conf etc, to force the use of a real dns address, and not to the little one inside the router. Placing the addresses inside the router's setup page has left me with a few hairs left, and now ALL the boxes on the lans I setup don't have any dns issues.