WinXP networking does not play well

  • Thread starter Thread starter M. Hockings
  • Start date Start date
M

M. Hockings

I am having some problem in that when my son connects his school
computer to our home network either wired or wirelessly it causes either
the router or the modem to go into some error state that make it
inoperative. If you have any thoughts on what we can change on the XP
machine to fix this we'd be most appreciative.

The details.

The network consists of a cluster of various machines Win95, Win98,
Win2K, and Linux attached either wired or wirelessly. Most connections
are wired through a d-link 24 port switch to a Linksys 4 port router and
via a cable modem to the internet. The wireless is via an SMC wireless
router into the same d-link switch. The linksys provides the dhcp and
dhcp is turned off on the smc. The smc is basically just acting as a
wireless access point. This has worked flawlessly for ages and only
needs to get reset (cycle the power) when there is a glip in our power
(i.e., runs fine for months at a time).

Enter XP ....

Configuring the laptop (IBM R41 I think) for wireless was a bit of a
mystery with XP's settings but we got it going. Problem is that within
a few minutes of connecting XP will toast the SMC for all users
requiring that it be powered off & on to get it going again. This is
not doing anything weird just running a browser or mail reader. Ok, so
go to wired, but hey, given a few hours of operation and XP seems to
constipate things somehow. All the lights are on but no data is going
out! Only a power off-on of the linksys and cable modem get it going again.

Yes, both the linksys and the smc are at their latest software levels as
are all the connecting machines. Any ideas what we can change on the XP
machine to make it play well with others? I'd call MS and get a
problem ticket opened on this but I have no way to trace what is going
on and say what the problem might be. Personally I'm inclined to ditch
XP for 2K or Linux but this is a pre-install on my son's laptop for his
school and I think they'd frown upon that kind of thing.


Mike

P.S. When describing this problem to a co-worker I found out that I am
not the only person seeing this same problem (XP hoses the router) and
that others are seeing the same problem with different hardware but the
same OS (WinXP).
 
Your comment triggered a thought. Perhaps XP's use of UPnP is uncovering a
bug in the router. You might try disabling the router's UPnP support and
see if you still have problems.
 
Mike,

I have no solution, but an SMC 7004 VBR firmware version 1.23
works here with a number of XP computers.

Most of the time it works fine, but when anybody tries to play
Freelancer, the router goes down within seconds and requires a
hard reset.

The SMC routers are cheap low-quality devices, not to be used in
any critical environment. Swap it for something better. (Now if
only I knew what that something better could be!)

But, as Ken already proposed, perhaps you can switch off some
functions in the router. For another example, you could
deactivate the entire firewall, at least for a test.

Hans-Georg
 
Hans-Georg, Ken,

Thanks for the input, I have checked both of the boxes and they are
both at the current firmware level (1.93s1 for the SMC and 1.45.7 for
the linksys). I was able to find a UPnP setting on the linksys and it
is already turned off, the smc does not seem to have such a setting. I
have re-applied the firmware updates just to be sure ;-)

In our setup we use the linksys as the dsl router/firewall/dhcp-server
then later added the smc operating simply as a wireless access point and
shared printer port. The smc has one of the ports connected to an
external switch, as does the linksys. All the wired machines are
connected to the same external switch.

I have the smc set up with a wep key and limit association to only the
machines that we want to allow via mac address.

Ken, do you have a suggestion for a manufacturer/model of either a
wireless access point or wireless & wired dsl router with a printer port
that will work with xp? We have been thinking of going to one of the
'g' devices to pick up a bit more speed over wireless so upgrading
things is not out of the question. Mind you, for all but the xp machine
things are solid.

Lastly, is there a way to disable the UPnP stuff in xp? In our setup I
don't see how it is anything other than a hindrance.

Mike
 
Don't really know if the SMC supports UPnP, it may not.

Don't have any hardware recommendations. None of the routers I'm familiar
with have a printer port.

You can turn off some of the UPnP NAT traversal functions in XP by
unchecking the Internet Gateway Discovery & Control Client in optional
components. However some components like DirectPlay do their own NAT
traversal and I'm not how to turn it off.

The UPnP NAT traversal can be quite useful as it automatically maps ports on
the router for Messenger, Remote Assistance and others.
 
Hi Ken,

Thank you for all the assistance -- it gives us something to
investigate. Looks like in the long run we need a hardware
modernization plan to upgrade the router and maybe a few machines (yup
maybe even the old 486 that is still running Win95 :-).

We probably won't get a chance to look into the XP problems together
again this until the weekend based on my Son's university schedule and
my work, training & competition schedule.

Kind regards,

Mike
 
Is there any information in the Event Viewer (Control Panel|Administrative
Tools|Event Viewer), to say what is happening?
Dave
 
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