Weird question about DoomWorld and internet service

So sometimes my internet up and decides on its own to go down. No pages are viewable; not search engines, not YouTube, not even a wiki. Yet despite the seeming lack of internet connection; there's DoomWorld, loading up like a champ. The only things that do not load here on DW are pics and videos, but all the text, links, and, ironically enough, avatars are intact, even pages/ones I've never seen before. The /idgames mirror here seems to work as well, only obviously I cannot download anything. I'm not worried about my internet; I know my provider sucks, so this question isn't about that. But could anyone shed some light as to why DoomWorld loads up just fine while all other sites fail?

Steam chat seems to work as well, but I forget if it has to be running before the service goes down or not. Also, not sure if Steam chat goes solely through the router.

You're technically asking two questions here, but it's probably something that could only be truly answered if it can be physically diagnosed. So here's an educated guess:

Starting with Doomworld, it's entirely possible that what you're seeing is entirely on cache. Even if no internet access, if your web browser thinks Doomworld's content is still valid, it can still display it. You can also end up seeing content you may think you've never seen if your browser tries to intelligently pre-load pages before you open them.
It's also entirely possible that what's down isn't internet access, but rather your DNS. If your PC still has Doomworld's address cache, it can still be accessed and downloaded. Doomworld isn't a complex site so it can grab a lot of content off the single IP.

From that to Steam, if Steam is still connected, it still has the IP cached and can continue to pull data through a sustained connection to its server. However another oddity that can happen is while your ISP appears to be down, what you can't do is create new connections but old ones can stay open. Since the Steam community connection is constant, that'll stay open with it (community isn't P2P, except for voice calls).

Side note: Everything goes through your router. That's the thing providing you with a WAN in the first place.

I know the content displayed cannot be on cache, as I've gone to profiles I've never seen that haven't been active in years to check if the avatars still worked and I don't go to every sub-forum here so it's pretty easy to find something I haven't seen.

My (uneducated) thought was that DoomWorld is an older site that sends less data (or something) which might be similar enough to what you said about it not being a complex site, which would explain its ease of loading up. The DNS issue is actually an interesting one because that sounds closest to what's going on. But what do you mean it can grab a lot of content off the one IP? As in DW uses less servers/IP's to send data, so my internet is able to establish connection with one and that's all that matters for DW? (I realize that's prolly way off, but I'm having trouble seeing what you mean here)

To Steam, that sounds about right, but I did not mean just that it went through the router, but that it just/only went through the router (as the person on the other end of the Steam-line was in the same wifi network). That's very interesting, though. So if the voice calls are Peer2Peer (which I'm guessing is what that means), does that mean that they still go through the internet, or do they confine themselves to the router if available?

As for the physical diagnosis, the cable company said that there is an error somewhere (in the line) and they were gonna send a tech out, who then said that he'd send a crew out to the main box, and that was a month ago. So there's no telling what kind of error it is but it's safe to say it's time for a new company. Still though, I would like to understand about what makes DoomWorld so special; HAX? I'm sure that my comp does have DoomWorld's DNS cached because Windows (10) and random b/s associated with it, but I can't put two and two together on how it still gets the real data without the data itself being cached.

You should try changing your DNS sever and see if that fixes it.

Ok so I've been doing some research on DNS servers and from the sounds of it my DNS server would be owned by the cable company. Now, I see that there are free ones such as Google's DNS services and OpenDNS, but is that the type of thing that I'd be just as well off to call the cable company and see if they can change it or would I be better off trying out one of the free ones?

I had similar problems with only a few sites working after changing RAM. Turns out almost every connection got timed out because the computer date and time was wrong. Once I changed to the correct time and year everything worked again.

Go to your router settings where it has the DNS, write them down somewhere and change them to:

primary 208.67.222.222
secondary 208.67.220.220

(These are the OpenDNS addresses)

Nice man, I appreciate the numbers; that'll save me some time later looking them up, but what are the ramifications of doing so; are there any noticable differences? Pardon if the question is stupid, but it'd feel strange to be paying for a service that comes with a pri-blic DNS server and then to use a public, free one instead.

It can make a difference in the response of the servers. Also, their DNS servers may be updated more quickly. And if your ISP has some DNS blacklist (for example for The Pirate Bay) then it doesn't affect you.

Try it. It's really not a big deal, unless you are having DNS problems. Then they will magically be fixed.

That's really odd. I would check your security programs; ie. perhaps you have inadvertently blocked out the rest of the internet while only allowing steam chat/doomworld. Maybe also experiment with using a VPN or a proxy configuration (which others have already suggested)

RightField said:

I had similar problems with only a few sites working after changing RAM. Turns out almost every connection got timed out because the computer date and time was wrong. Once I changed to the correct time and year everything worked again.

yeah a similar thing happened to me. My computer gets very difficult if the time/date is set wrong.

Ah, yes, the wrong time/date messes up with the security certificates' validation so no https connection works because the OS thinks it has expired.