Frequent IPv4 internet disconnects, looking for traceroute help

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MEA707

Reputable
Apr 12, 2017
12
0
4,510
I recently brought back a Lenovo ThinkPad T61 laptop with Windows 7 64-bit back to life that suffered a motherboard failure 3.5 years ago. I replaced the motherboard and fired it up for the first time this past week. Everything about it is running fine, but I am having frequent internet disconnects when it comes to IPv4 websites (so Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo are always fine since they're IPv6) when connected to my router via wireless. So just to be clear, the entire time the wireless connection itself never drops, I can reach my router just fine as well as IPv6 websites. The laptop has an older Intel 4965AGN wireless-N card in it. No problems at all when connected via ethernet, so it is a wireless related problem. I've done a clean install, and it did not resolve it either, so it's not some software/virus conflict.

I know it is not a router problem (LinkSys EA7300 Wireless-AC MIMO router), because my newer Lenovo ThinkPad T440p Windows 10 64-bit laptop never has any problems, neither do my Android smartphone, Yamaha MusicCast wifi speakers, and even old IPad (generation 1).

I want to share the trace routes to Amazon.com before the internet drop and after the drop, and would like some help interpreting these traceroutes as I'm not a networking expert.

Before the IPv4 internet drop, no problems accessing Amazon.com:
C:\Users\MEA707>tracert amazon.com

Tracing route to amazon.com [54.239.17.6]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms MEA707 [192.168.1.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 10 ms 9 ms 11 ms te-0-5-0-10-sur03.everett.wa.seattle.comcast.net
[68.87.206.149]
4 11 ms 11 ms 8 ms be-29-ar01.seattle.wa.seattle.comcast.net [69.13
9.164.217]
5 16 ms 13 ms 18 ms be-33650-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net [68.8
6.93.165]
6 36 ms 36 ms 35 ms be-10817-cr02.denver.co.ibone.comcast.net [68.86
.84.205]
7 58 ms 60 ms 57 ms be-11724-cr02.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net [68.86
.84.230]
8 66 ms 68 ms 57 ms be-12495-pe03.1950stemmons.tx.ibone.comcast.net
[68.86.85.194]
9 68 ms 60 ms 58 ms 66.208.233.34
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 93 ms 92 ms 93 ms 54.239.104.151
14 97 ms 90 ms 90 ms 54.239.111.43
15 91 ms 90 ms 94 ms 205.251.244.207
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 98 ms 95 ms 97 ms 54.239.17.6

Trace complete.
Click to expand...

After the IPv4 internet drop, I can no longer access Amazon.com:
C:\Users\MEA707>tracert amazon.com

Tracing route to amazon.com [54.239.17.7]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms MEA707 [192.168.1.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 16 ms 13 ms 9 ms te-0-5-0-11-sur03.everett.wa.seattle.comcast.net
[68.85.241.29]
4 10 ms 19 ms 9 ms be-29-ar01.seattle.wa.seattle.comcast.net [69.13
9.164.217]
5 11 ms 11 ms 10 ms be-33650-cr01.seattle.wa.ibone.comcast.net [68.8
6.93.165]
6 36 ms 38 ms 37 ms be-10817-cr02.denver.co.ibone.comcast.net [68.86
.84.205]
7 59 ms 58 ms 58 ms be-11724-cr02.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net [68.86
.84.230]
8 61 ms 57 ms 58 ms be-12441-pe01.1950stemmons.tx.ibone.comcast.net
[68.86.89.206]
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.
Click to expand...

Couple discoveries I've made:

1) If I disable "802.11n" mode in the wireless card properties in Device Manager, I no longer have the drops. This might be what I have to stick with, but it means 54g speeds.
2) I connected my old 6 year old LinkSys E2000 wireless-N router, and experienced no drops whatsoever, so up to now I've concluded it's a compatibility issue/conflict between the Intel 4965AGN card in the laptop and the new LinkSys EA7300 router.

Any help with the trace routes above would be helpful, trying to isolate exactly where the breakdown is happening, although I don't think there's much else I can do since I've tried everything I can think of, including new drivers, old drivers, resetting the TCIP stack, setting the DNS to Google's servers, to clean installing Windows 7.

The only "fix" has been to disable 802.11n mode in the card or use my old LinkSys E2000 router (which isn't an option anymore as it's past its prime time).
 
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bill001g

Titan
Aug 9, 2012
28,366
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125,640
What you claim is almost impossible.

Tracert shows a list of routers in the path to some destination. No matter what you do inside your house and your router you can not change the path traffic takes in the internet. This is all control by a routing protocol called BGP that is running between the routers.

It works the same inside your house but much simpler. Your PC will always send the data to the router and your router will always send data to the ISP first router. No matter what you change on your pc you can not make your router not send data to the ISP.


The tracert you provide if it is to be believed indicates there is a problem between comcast and amazon in dallas. There is nothing you can set in your equipment that would affect a connection between 2 companies think how messed up it would be if people could do that.

Not sure what to tell you. If you think it really is wireless you need to run ping tests to your router. If you get no loss on the wireless is fine. Once it passes your router the traffic is no longer wireless so it should be exactly the same as ethernet connected.

The only other thing I can think of is that it is IPv6 related. I would try to disable the IPV6 option in the nic and see if it helps. There really is not need for IPV6 unless you live in a small number of countries in asia and even there it has limit use.

 
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M

MEA707

Reputable
Apr 12, 2017
12
0
4,510


What claim am I making that is almost impossible? The only claim I'm making is I'm having intermittent internet connection on an older computer. This tracert stuff I am not an expert in, and just posted it to get some troubleshooting help.



The tracert I pasted is straight from the Windows command prompt after running the tracert command to Amazon.com, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say "if it is to be believed."



Where did I say I'm trying to set my equipment to control the connection between 2 companies? I'm just trying to fix my internet problem on my computer, on my end. Things that I have control over. I'm not trying to control the connection between Comcast and Amazon...



Yes I have run ping tests to the router, no problems at all.

See below:
C:\Users\MEA707>ping 192.168.1.1

Pinging 192.168.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms



If you mean unchecking the "Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6)" box in the Wi-Fi properties, I already tried this. I still experienced the random internet drops, except in this case I lost all access including to websites like Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Yahoo. I could still reach my router (192.168.1.1) however.
 
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bill001g

Titan
Aug 9, 2012
28,366
2,766
125,640
I guess the main confusion was you had many reference to the tracert in your post and you were saying this was some how related to your problem.

It is very strange that it does not work at all to many sites when you disable IPv6. The vast majority of people do not even have IPv6 available from their ISP. This would mean the ISP maybe lost a connection to other ISP and only the one that supports IPv6 works. The main problem with that idea is you would have problems with all your devices in your house not just one. It really should be the other way around where IPv4 addresses work and you have trouble with IPv6

I tend to recommend everyone disable IPv6 since it causes strange errors at times for people and provides no real benefit for most.

It almost has to be the device driver for that nic since it only happens on a single pc and even on that pc it works if your use ethernet. There is nothing you could intentionally configure to make it work the way you say it does even if you wanted. Maybe as a guess there is something different about the firewall rules for IPv4 address and IPv6. It is so strange that changing something like the radio encoding (ie 802.11n) has any impact this is done at the hardware level by the radio chips and it not really related to what type of data is actually contained in the packets
 
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M

MEA707

Reputable
Apr 12, 2017
12
0
4,510


Let me clarify. Disabling IPv6 itself doesn't drop me from the internet, but when I do have the random internet drop, it means this time I don't have access to Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Yahoo.

If I leave IPv6 checked as is, when the internet does drop, I still can visit Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Yahoo. I verified this also by doing a traceroute to Google, and it comes back fine, with no time outs unlike if I do a traceroute to Amazon as shown above.

So in summary, disabling IPv6 has no effect on my internet access other than losing Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Yahoo access when the intermittent drop does happen to occur.

Some additional background, sometimes the internet will come back on its own within 1-2 minutes, sometimes the drop lasts for several minutes before it comes back, and sometimes it just doesn't come back (or at least I haven't waited long enough). Disconnecting from the Wi-Fi network and reconnecting solves it, temporarily at least until the next random drop happens.



Yes, I do definitely believe it is a driver issue, specifically some sort of conflict/compatibility between the NIC card and the new router. Unfortunately I've tried multiple drivers, and it doesn't solve it. Intel released the last drivers for this card in October 2010, which is what I currently have installed.

Regarding disabling the 802.11n mode, I wonder if it is a data flow issue that is causing the internet to drop. I've noticed that if I do some system update run via the internet, like Windows Update, or Lenovo's own System Update to search for new software/drivers, it "speeds up" the drops, and sometimes the internet drop occurs while it's searching for updates. Essentially anything data intensive/streaming tends to cause the drop.

Is there a way to "slow down/throttle down" the NIC card as a way to prove this theory, besides disabling 802.11n mode?

Also, could this issue be an indication of a hardware or antenna problem on the NIC card? Thing is I haven't gotten any error messages, and I even went through the logs in Event Viewer and there were no issues at all. Windows thinks the card is completely fine. I ran the Intel Pro Wireless enterprise diagnostics tool and all tests passed as well.

I understand it is an older card, but it is strange there would be issues when wireless standards are supposed to be backwards compatible. Technically if I had an ancient wireless-B NIC card, it should theoretically have no problems connecting to a modern Wireless-AC router.
 
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