Weird network problems

[Lothar]

I'm having some weird network problems, and probably have been for some time.

Symptoms:

Any time I open up a program that tends to open several network ports, like Vortex or a BitTorrent client, my connect lags out really bad. Basically, all traffic stops for several minutes. My wife's computer/connection still functions normally, and she can use the same types of software with no problems. It doesn't happen when I'm using a normal browser, just when I use some software that opens lots of ports.

System config:

- AMD AthlonXP 2700+, 512 MB RAM, XP Home SP 2 with auto-updates
- Netgear GA311 Gigabit adapter, less than a week old
- Kerio Personal Firewall just updated
- AVG antivirus just updated, scanned this morning
- Spybot S&D just updated, scanned just now
- slightly old Adaware, scanned just now

Things I've already tried:

- Replacing the network card with a brand new one of a different type using different drivers.
- Switching network cables.
- Swapping ports on the switch with the wife's compy.
- Comparing all services, running process, etc. with wife's compy and ending any that she doesn't have running
- changing \"Internet Options\" (Internet Explorer) security settings so as to be less secure, and therefore, block less crap

Anybody have any ideas for things I can try? This is just incredibly annoying...

[CDN_Merlin]

Not sure any of this will help but here goes.

1) Set your NIC to 100 Full Duplex instead of AUTO.
2) Take off any authentication on the NIC.
3) Turn off POWER MGMT on the NIC so Windows won't make it go to sleep.

[BUBBALOU]

- Netgear GA311 Gigabit adapter, less than a week old

Things I've already tried:

- Replacing the network card with a brand new one of a different type using different drivers.

Did you have a static ip and or different DNS settings

that kind of hang would result from conflicting IP's or a NIC cards speed defaulting to a higher speed than what is in the switch and the inability to negotiate

[Krom]

You probably have a default Windows XP config so I doubt it's UPnP messing things up but it never hurts to check.

[Lothar]

1) Set your NIC to 100 Full Duplex instead of AUTO.
2) Take off any authentication on the NIC.
3) Turn off POWER MGMT on the NIC so Windows won't make it go to sleep.

Tried 1 and 3. Couldn't find any authentication on it. Also tried setting to 10 full duplex. Still have the same problems.

I doubt it's UPnP messing things up

UPnP is very disabled.

Did you have a static ip and or different DNS settings

My wife and I both get dynamic IP's. DNS settings are identical.

Just another little weird thing: whenever I get a new IP address, my Network Connections screen says "Acquiring network address" but it says it long after I have the new address. I also get the Acquring network address thing in my systray. I know I have an IP because, well, I can submit this post ;)

[fliptw]

how are you hooked up to your isp?

you might be running into XP SP2's TCPIP connection limit. check the system event viewer for 4226 events.

[Lothar]

how are you hooked up to your isp?

Cable modem. Comcast. Yeah, I know, it sucks. But my wife's compy -- hooked up through the same setup -- doesn't have the same problems.

you might be running into XP SP2's TCPIP connection limit. check the system event viewer for 4226 events.

I do have a fair number of 4226 events.

Oddly, the problem seems to have cleared itself up. I just opened up bitcomet and restarted an old download, and it's gone for like 5 minutes without any problems. This has to be a new record...

..... he said, as his connect froze up. ARGH! Right when I hit "post", everything else just froze. Bitcomet has been completely unresponsive for about 5 minutes now. No signs of it letting up.

Even weirder: if I switch off the cable modem, the frozen software stays frozen. But if I unplug the network cable from the back of the computer, the software unfreezes within a few seconds.

No new 4226 events showed up. Just 4202/4201 (network cable dis/re-connected).

I'll go ahead and try the patch suggested, though. Back after restart...

[Lothar]

Nope, didn't help. Still freezing up...

[fliptw]

so, you are not connected to the cable modem thru a router, it sounds like yer not. Regardless its a software issue.

Try different BT clients or the above patch again with a higher value

netstat would be helpful for diagnosictic purposes(netstat -a -o 1).

also, are you sure the windows firewall is off?

[Lothar]

so, you are not connected to the cable modem thru a router, it sounds like yer not.

Not through a router, just a simple switch. My wife doesn't have the same problems, and I've swapped out my network card, cable, and traded ports on the switch, so it most definitely IS a software issue of some sort.

Try different BT clients

Have also done that. I have the same problem with BitComet and Azerus, as well as Vortex for D3. The connect just lags out.

or the above patch again with a higher value

Will try it in a bit.

are you sure the windows firewall is off?

Extremely sure.

[fliptw]

just to filter out the obivious, have we factored the cat 5 cable out of the equation?

[Lothar]

I've tried different CAT5 cable. Even swapped with the wife; her compy still works fine and mine still blows.

Stranger yet: netstat freezes when I open bitcomet (etc.) -- but not on my wife's computer.

[fliptw]

Stranger yet: netstat freezes when I open bitcomet (etc.) -- but not on my wife's computer.

whacky. does it do the same for vortex?

you and your wife are using the same firewall right? try disabling it.

[DCrazy]

Grab Ethereal and capture the traffic coming into your machine; someone might be flooding your box (though I doubt it considering the behavior is predictable).

[Lothar]

yep... netstat froze thusly:

Active Connections

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State PID
TCP LotharBot:epmap LotharBot:0 LISTENING 872
TCP LotharBot:microsoft-ds LotharBot:0 LISTENING 4
TCP LotharBot:1027 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 460
TCP LotharBot:1039 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 2124
TCP LotharBot:14137 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 652
TCP LotharBot:14238 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 1668
TCP LotharBot:44334 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 324
TCP LotharBot:44501 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 324
TCP LotharBot:netbios-ssn LotharBot:0 LISTENING 4
TCP LotharBot:1047 211-74-78-187.adsl.dynamic.seed.net.tw:20066 ES
TABLISHED 652
TCP LotharBot:1048 218.5.39.71:17173 SYN_SENT 652
TCP LotharBot:1025 localhost:44334 ESTABLISHED 460
TCP LotharBot:1027 localhost:1029 ESTABLISHED 460
TCP LotharBot:1029 localhost:1027 ESTABLISHED 324
TCP LotharBot:1030 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 1200
TCP LotharBot:1037 localhost:44334 ESTABLISHED 2124
TCP LotharBot:1039 localhost:1041 ESTABLISHED 2124
TCP LotharBot:1041 localhost:1039 ESTABLISHED 324
TCP LotharBot:10110 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 1600
TCP LotharBot:44334 localhost:1025 ESTABLISHED 324
TCP LotharBot:44334 localhost:1037 ESTABLISHED 324
UDP LotharBot:microsoft-ds *:* 4
UDP LotharBot:isakmp *:* 648
UDP LotharBot:1026 *:* 460
UDP LotharBot:1028 *:* 460
UDP LotharBot:1036 *:* 984
UDP LotharBot:1038 *:* 2124
UDP LotharBot:1040 *:* 2124
UDP LotharBot:4500 *:* 648
UDP LotharBot:14137 *:* 652
UDP LotharBot:14237 *:* 1668
UDP LotharBot:44334 *:* 324
UDP LotharBot:netbios-ns *:* 4
UDP LotharBot:netbios-dgm *:* 4
UDP LotharBot:1044 *:* 936
UDP LotharBot:1900 *:* 1072
UDP LotharBot:1045 *:* 936
UDP LotharBot:1900 *:* 1072

[repeated many times, once per second]

Active Connections

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State PID
TCP LotharBot:epmap LotharBot:0 LISTENING 872
TCP LotharBot:microsoft-ds LotharBot:0 LISTENING 4
TCP LotharBot:1027 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 460
TCP LotharBot:1039 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 2124
TCP LotharBot:14137 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 652
TCP LotharBot:14238 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 1668
TCP LotharBot:44334 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 324
TCP LotharBot:44501 LotharBot:0 LISTENING 324
TCP LotharBot:netbios-ssn LotharBot:0 LISTENING 4
TCP LotharBot:1047 211-74-78-187.adsl.dynamic.seed.net.tw:20066 ES
TABLISHED 652
TCP LotharBot:1048 218.5.39.71:17173 SYN_SENT 652
TCP LotharBot:1049 dsl85-102-27923.ttnet.net.tr:17412 SYN_SENT
652
TCP LotharBot:1050 88.224.26.19:10033 SYN_SENT 652
[BitComet opened; 10-20 seconds lag between these lines]
TCP LotharBot:1051 80.126.191.58:16630 SYN_SENT 652
[10-20 seconds lag between these lines]
TCP LotharBot:1052 200.158.154.7:17963 SYN_SENT 652
[and so on...]

I've also run with the firewall disabled. Trying once more...

... does the same thing. After a few seconds, netstat just freezes. It's not like my CPU is all used up; I'm sitting below 10% CPU and below 200 MB page file usage on ye olde task manager. Mozilla, svchost, explorer, and bitcomet are the only processes using >10 MB RAM, and none of them are using more than 5% CPU at a time.

But it's hella inconsistant. After leaving it for a few minutes, the connect sped back up, and I'm downloading just fine. Granted, 4k/sec isn't really \"just fine\" on cable, and the wife's compy regularly gets 250k+ using the same software... but still, it's like the computer just gets confused allocating listening ports or something. Either that, or the cable modem gives her compy full access but severely restricts mine.

Removing her computer from the switch doesn't help. Neither does plugging mine directly into the modem. In both cases, I power cycled the modem.

One of the weirdest things is that it's entirely inconsistant. Sometimes it lags out right away, sometimes it goes for 3 or 4 minutes and then lags out. In every case, though, all network traffic stalls, and anything talking to the network card stalls too (netstat, for example.)

[Lothar]

DCrazy, I doubt it's someone flooding my box... either my firewall or netstat would show it if it was. And my wife's compy works just fine connected to the same cable modem. I'm pretty sure the cable, not my network card, should be the slow point.

Further, it *only* happens when I've got something that opens a lot of ports (like bitcomet) open. I can download very fast through Mozilla.

[ccb056]

format c:/s

[Cuda68]

If it only happens when useing Bit torrent its because a machine on the bittorrent tracker list went offline for some reason (locked up, crashed, over loaded with connections) and your box is hung waiting for a time out responce. I have not used bit torrent in a few years but that was a commen occurance a few years back.

[Lothar]

Cuda, here's the thing:

I can run the exact same software on my wife's computer, sitting a mere 2 feet away from mine, connected to the internet in the exact same way, without the same problems. So it's not some other client doing something dumb; it's my system not handling connections properly somehow.

No, ccb, I'm not going to fry my drive and start over. If it comes to that, I'll do without torrents and I'll deal with vortex freezing up.

[akula65]

Here's a suggestion in broad terms: The computer is looking for your OLD (i.e. pre-Netgear GA311) network card. This would explain why you get the \"Acquiring network address\" message (the old card is gone, so it never acquires an address for that particular card). You mentioned that you had tried another new network card, but have you gone back to the network card you had before all of the problems started?

You might check the technical support for the old network card to see if there are known issues with removal of the old card under WinXP. There may be a special procedure to remove registry entries or reset the networking configuration under WinXP for example.

The other thing would be to see if there is a way to detect spurious configuration information tied to the old network card. For example, is there any application software or WinXP configuration data that is tied to the specific MAC address of the old adapter? (Even if the old network card died, the MAC address is probably printed on the card itself.)

[Lothar]

Here's a suggestion in broad terms: The computer is looking for your OLD (i.e. pre-Netgear GA311) network card. This would explain why you get the "Acquiring network address" message

Nope. It's done the "acquiring network address" thing for months. I installed the GA311 the day before I started this thread.

The old card is still present, but disabled. It's not looking for an address. The new card still thinks it's looking for one even though it's had one for a few days now. (I named the connections; I can tell it's the new card looking.)

You mentioned that you had tried another new network card, but have you gone back to the network card you had before all of the problems started?

You misunderstand.

I had the problems on the original card. I tried a new card to eliminate "the card is flaky" as a possibility. The problem is not with either the new card, or the old card being removed. The problem is from long before I switched cards.

[Jeff250]

You and your wife are connected to the same cable modem through a switch? Are you paying for a second IP address from your ISP?

[Lothar]

You and your wife are connected to the same cable modem through a switch?

Yes.

Are you paying for a second IP address from your ISP?

Yes.

[SuperSheep]

We did experience some weird latency issues with Comcast which wound up being their DNS servers.

I've also had terrible experiences with switches and wound up always having to resort to a router.

[CDN_Merlin]

I'd suggest ditching the 2nd IP, buy a router and plug everyone into it. That way you actually save the extra $5+ a month for the other IP and the router can assign you upto 254.