Mixing wired and wireless problem

[bokuden13]

I hope someone can help me because I'm pretty new to wireless networks. Here's my situation: I'm sharing a 3Mb/s cable connection via a Microsoft MN-700 802.11g wireless router. The computer in the same room as the router connects to it with a normal ethernet cable, and my computer is upstairs connected via a Microsoft MN-710 802.11g USB network adapter. Both computers are running XP Pro. I know that sometimes the wireless connection will sometimes drop and then come back-that's not the problem.

Here's the problem: On the computer that connects to the router with the ethernet cable, sometimes the connection will inexplicably drop, and it will not come back unless the computer is restarted. The strange thing is that when this happens, my computer (connected wirelessly) suffers no such outage. I am still connected and I don't even see a drop off in speed. But this is really annoying for the person downstairs, who is physically connected to the router, because he has to restart his computer usually once or twice a day when this happens.

Are there any ideas about what could be causing this or how to fix it?

 

[kwebb]

If the card is slotted you can try moving it to another PCI slot. I'd also make sure you have the latest driver. Also run spybot or spyware removal tool equivelant. Could be the card itself. Try to get another NIC and see if you still have the problem. NIC's can be had for 10 bucks. You can always disable the existing NIC if its integrated or just remove. You can leave it in there as well. Shouldn't be a problem regardless. I'd check the cable as well though it's unlikely rebooting the PC would fix that. Change ports on the routers switch, though again that wouldn't normally be fixed with a PC reboot. Got to use process of elimination when you troubleshoot. Pinpoint what is causing problem. Makes fixing it much easier.

CCNA, MCSE, A+, Cisco Certified Wireless Field Engineer

 

[blah]

LOL, you are using Microsoft's stuff and coplaining about it? Were you born yesturday?

..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[bokuden13]

This turned out to be a software problem. After checking off two little boxes in ZoneAlarm (Allow Outgoing DNS/DHCP in Trusted Zone on High Setting, and the same for the Internet Zone), this has not been an issue. Hopefully everything will keep running smoothly now. Thanks for the advice on troubleshooting though, I'm still learning about networking (especially wireless) and it's good to know what to test for what problems.

 

[kwebb]

Yeah, mentioning the two words Zone Alarm would have been alot of help. You can pretty much point to that sh#%y software everytime if your having network problems and you have it installed. ZA with networking is analagous to AOL with ISP's.

 

[bokuden13]

That's a pretty harsh analysis. What would you recommend using as a software firewall then? I remember trying Norton Internet Security and hating it. The performance decrease was unacceptable, the software was hard to use because so much was included in it, and I couldn't shut off one part (like the firewall) to just use the antivirus software. Zone Alarm has been good to me so far (with this one exception) and it's free.

So for a semi-computer educated layman, what would be a better program to use? Black Ice? McAfee's security suite? I need to get new antivirus software as well, so a security suite might be a good idea, but I don't want every single part of it running all the time, and I'm wary of how much the newer versions might bog down my computer.

 

[blah]

ZoneAlarm is the best out there at this point. It is just a matter of knowing what you are doing and telling ZA what to allow and what not (giving it a range of IPs to let through and so forth). Most of peepel which call something sh$%y based on luck of knowing "how to" do not even have a clue how to use toilet paper, so taking their advice is putting yourself lower on the intelligence chain.

AV? I use AntiVir Guard for more than a year, unvizibel for the system's resurses (you can get it from <A HREF="http://www.free-av.com/" target="_new">here</A>)

..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[kwebb]

I'm still using Tiny Personal Firewall. Not sure what the most current version is. The main problem with ZA is how deeply it integrates into the registry and how poorly the removal process is. While ZA is feature rich, I still would put it well down the list overall because of the problems with not turning off properly and the uninstall issues. Some advice, take any suggestions in this and any forum with a grain of salt. Trolls looking to start fights and talk nonsense can degrade the information you recieve. If you like ZA then by all means stay with it, but if you have connectivity issues on your LAN and have ZA installed, that is the absolute first place to start looking.

 

[bokuden13]

Roger that kwebb. I did have some trouble using Diskeeper as a result of poor programming with ZA, though I didn't know about the uninstall issues. If I run into any other problems with it, I think I might try your suggestion.

Reading up on antivirus software I found that several people on the Tom's forums use Panda. So far I like it, but I recommended it to my father, who is now seeing it crash his computer. Maybe their tech support will work things out, but I did find that reviews of the software on Amazon mention that it can turn into a horror story. As long as it's working for me though, I suppose I'll continue to use it.

 

[peartree]

It's a shame to see people bash ZoneAlarm. It's true that it's pickier than it used to be and it's true that in the newest version they've done their best to hide the important settings, but the thing does work like a champ once you install it properly.

Having just completed a 7 month evaluation of anti-virus and firewall software, let me offer these opinions: PC-cillin is worthless for anything but the simplest anti-virus usage; Panda is very good at causing errors and missing things, but their tech support is far worse (maybe if I spoke Spanish?); Tiny may work well, but unless you're a network engineer, as you are Kwebb, you're never going to get it configured and running right.

For my money, next best to ZoneAlarm is Kerio Personal Firewall Pro version 4. It's easier to set up than ZoneAlarm, protects as well, and causes absolutely no problems. In fact, it's even easier to use. That doesn't mean it isn't configurable. It has all the options and expert rules that ZoneAlarm does.

What I'm wondering is if anyone has given thought to it being a good old-fashioned bug in the Microsoft software? Microsoft has been known to have a bug or two in their software...

First, I'd make sure I didn't plug the line from your friend's computer into the uplink socket. Right after that, I'd check the cable to the dropping system and probably replace it(since it's cheap).

<font color=green>****</font color=green> Never Assume <font color=red>ANYTHING</font color=red> <font color=green>****</font color=green>

 

[kwebb]

ZA bashing is well deserved, at least from my experience. Also, Tiny isn't that dificult to configure and get running properly, again from my experience with it. Lastly, I am FAR from a network engineer. Very far. Kerio is a good alternative suggestion. I had forgotten about Kerio. Equal to ZA in abilities without the headaches. I will add it's been quite some time since I have used ZoneAlarm. Perhaps it's gotten rid of some of the bugs it had when I last used it.

 

[kwebb]

Double post<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by kwebb on 07/02/04 05:58 PM.</EM></FONT></P>