Repeated DNS Queries to same domains

Question

I have a Dell Dimension on my network. It's pretty new (4-5 months) with very little software on it. We bought it specifically to run a landscape design/CAD program. So it has the CAD program, Firefox, Adobe Acrobat Reader, AVG Anti-virus, and Kerio personal firewall. Everything else on it is Dell-installed stuff (much of which I removed or disabled.) The computer is doing DNS queries every 10 seconds to yahoo.com, intel.com, google.com, and microsoft.com. All four domains - and only these domains - every 10 seconds. This is stupid. No other computer on my network does this. I saw it while doing packet capture on the LAN to help me setup some port forwarding and protocol binding in a new firewall. I figure it's part of some 'helpful' but useless Dell app that came on the computer. Any ideas what it might be? I haven't spent any time looking at the computer lately, and it's not worth much time to stop 4 packets every 10 seconds. But it is irritating and I thought maybe someone here might have a quick answer. Thanks. - twf

jmwills · Answer

Yahoo could be Musicmatch, Intel would be for drivers, Dell has a custom web page with Google, and of course the system is constatntly checking for updates.   Just a hunch on my part.

terrywfrazier · Answer

@jmwills wrote:

Yahoo could be Musicmatch, Intel would be for drivers, Dell has a custom web page with Google, and of course the system is constatntly checking for updates.

Just a hunch on my part.

But shouldn't the system be smart enough to cache DNS entries for longer than 10 seconds? It's doing nothing more than pinging my ISP's DNS server to make sure that google, yahoo, microsoft, and intel are all still there. It can't be checking for updates, it would have to ping the actual domains to do that. - twf

jmwills · Answer

I'll tell you, you never know what is really on these images that come from the factory and how they are set up.  That's the reaosn I wipe everything off and start over again.   I still think it is looking for updates.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

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