Archived from groups: microsoft.public.broadbandnet.hardware (More info?)
Hi all!
Just a followup posting on a topic that's been brought up
a few times - including once by myself. If an MN-700 is
sending and recieving data from a few hundred different
IPs consistantly for a few hours, a hard freeze will
occur. Tech support wasn't sure what was going on. They
ended up sending a replacement router which exhibits the
same issue.
I'd just made another call and the problem
was sent to a senior tech. They couldn't quite seem to
figure out what was going on and suggested I return it.
Below, I've posted parts of an email sent to Neel and
hnbugs@microsoft.com. In there, I've included a procedure
that'll *should* cause most MN-700s to freeze. It's been
tested with two separate MN-700s, across two or three
firmware versions. (Latest firmware included, FWIW.)
Original email, edited slightly:
After somewhere between 3-6 hours of medium - heavy
WAN traffic, the router will freeze up. Heavy LAN
traffic alone doesn't cause a freeze. When the router
is frozen, the lights are on and look happy enough.
(Modem light blinks, wireless is on and wired(s),
depending on what is connected, are on.) All LAN and
WAN traffic is refused from all computers, wired and
wireless. Just before a freeze, DHCP and DNS will
fail. At that point, for a moment, I am able to ping
WAN / net IP addresses, but am unable to resolve any
domain names. (I.e., I could ping 64.233.x.x, but
a ping for www.google.com fails.) At that point,
pinging the router itself still works. After perhaps a
minute or two after DHCP and DNS are lost, the router
will clam up and can't be pinged or accessed. (All
pings from that point on fail.)
If the wireless computer is rebooted when the router
is frozen, the card is able to connect to the router
with a fine enough signal and authenticate via WEP,
but is unable to obtain an IP. If the computer was on,
the wireless utility says that it is connected with
good signal strengh. Alas, an ipconfig /renew fails
with a timeout from the DHCP server. On wired
connections, a link light is shown, but any computers
that were on are unable to ping the base station. If a
wired computer is turned on after the base station has
failed, it is unable to grab an IP.
The only way to get everything going again is to power
cycle the router. Once the router is power cycled, all
network traffic works OK until the next freeze.
The router has been updated with the most recent
firmware - boot and runtime code 02.01.02.0590. (Edit:
Also tested on 02.00.08.0333) The
router logs don't seem to show anything out of the
ordinary.
Although I'm not the original poster (Edit: This was for
another post on ms.public.broadbandnet.hardware), there
were four
questions in your original reply - will just answer
them here as a batch, in case they might help.
1. Is this happening on wired or wireless connections?
Both.
2. What kind of apps are running on the network at the
time of the crash?
Generally, an AIM client, a bit of web browsing, and
an eMule client or two.
3. What wireless security is turned on (regardless of
the answer to #1)?
WEP, 128 bit.
4. What kind of WAN connection? If PPPoE, is idle
timeout on?
Cable modem.
Clients consist of one Win2K Pro box (wireless) and
two linux boxes (wired). Hardware version of router is
00.00.00.0004. On my side, I can replicate the
conditions which cause a router freeze consistantly.
To cause my router and (perhaps) some other MN-700s to
freeze:
Requirements: A cable/DSL+ net connection, an MN-700
(HW ver 4 - don't know if that matters), a Win2K/XP (for
eMule)
computer hooked up wirelessly to the MN-700 (Win9x and
ME sometimes have problems with a lot of concurrent
connections), and a hard drive with about 40-60 gigs
free - although the router probably will freeze before
it gets near that.
1. Grab a copy of eMule.
(http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?
group_id=71866
/ www.emuleplus.tk / www.emule-project.net)
2. Setup copy number one to have a TCP and UDP clientports
of your choice.
3. Using the base station management tool, forward
those ports to the eMule client computer.
3. Setup another copy of eMule (making sure, if the
specific version of eMule you are using has such a thing,
the checkbox to allow multiple eMules to run at once is
checked) using different TCP and UDP clientports of your
choice.
4. Using the base station management tool, forward
those ports to the eMule client computer.
5. Make sure max connections on each client are set to
500 or so.
6. Also, make sure that the upload bandwidth is capped
for each client, if that is desired - if the upload
speed is maxed out, downloads will have trouble... no
way to get ACKs back.
7. Connect to a server in each client, making sure it
does not report a low ID. (If you have a lowid, it
will either disconnect you or simply report, under the
log tab that: New clientid is xxxx, where XXXX is a
number under 1,000,000. If you have a number over
1,000,000, should be all set! If a low-id shows up,
*something* isn't letting one of the four ports
operate at it should - sometimes port forwarding needs
a double check or a software firewall needs to be
punched through.)
7. Click on Search on client one, type in Linux, (Big
files that are really legal - boo SCO!) set min file size
to 600 megs, then click on
Start. Using shift, select and start a download for
perhaps the first one hundred files. (I know it seems
like a lot. From what I've found a whole lot less will
cause the router to freeze, but would think this
should almost certainly cause such a thing.)
8. In eMule two, do the same, except only start to
download one of the large files.
9. Wait a few hours. (Probably less than 12.)
With any luck, the computer should still be working
fine, but the router should be frozen. Most likely,
this will also work on a wired connection, with only
one eMule client, and with only 30-75 files or so. The
above always will cause a router freeze for me,
though.
The only way to get the router back is to power cycle
it.
It would seem that there are also a bunch of other
scenarios which might cause the same data profile.
(Perhaps a web server which serves files under 10 megs to
a whole bunch of people... or something of that ilk.)
Any help Neel (or anyone else might be able to provide)
would be wonderful.
Thanks for reading this giant post!
Andy
Hi all!
Just a followup posting on a topic that's been brought up
a few times - including once by myself. If an MN-700 is
sending and recieving data from a few hundred different
IPs consistantly for a few hours, a hard freeze will
occur. Tech support wasn't sure what was going on. They
ended up sending a replacement router which exhibits the
same issue.
I'd just made another call and the problem was sent to a senior tech. They couldn't quite seem to
figure out what was going on and suggested I return it.
Below, I've posted parts of an email sent to Neel and
hnbugs@microsoft.com. In there, I've included a procedure
that'll *should* cause most MN-700s to freeze. It's been
tested with two separate MN-700s, across two or three
firmware versions. (Latest firmware included, FWIW.)
Original email, edited slightly:
After somewhere between 3-6 hours of medium - heavy
WAN traffic, the router will freeze up. Heavy LAN
traffic alone doesn't cause a freeze. When the router
is frozen, the lights are on and look happy enough.
(Modem light blinks, wireless is on and wired(s),
depending on what is connected, are on.) All LAN and
WAN traffic is refused from all computers, wired and
wireless. Just before a freeze, DHCP and DNS will
fail. At that point, for a moment, I am able to ping
WAN / net IP addresses, but am unable to resolve any
domain names. (I.e., I could ping 64.233.x.x, but
a ping for www.google.com fails.) At that point,
pinging the router itself still works. After perhaps a
minute or two after DHCP and DNS are lost, the router
will clam up and can't be pinged or accessed. (All
pings from that point on fail.)
If the wireless computer is rebooted when the router
is frozen, the card is able to connect to the router
with a fine enough signal and authenticate via WEP,
but is unable to obtain an IP. If the computer was on,
the wireless utility says that it is connected with
good signal strengh. Alas, an ipconfig /renew fails
with a timeout from the DHCP server. On wired
connections, a link light is shown, but any computers
that were on are unable to ping the base station. If a
wired computer is turned on after the base station has
failed, it is unable to grab an IP.
The only way to get everything going again is to power
cycle the router. Once the router is power cycled, all
network traffic works OK until the next freeze.
The router has been updated with the most recent
firmware - boot and runtime code 02.01.02.0590. (Edit:
Also tested on 02.00.08.0333) The
router logs don't seem to show anything out of the
ordinary.
Although I'm not the original poster (Edit: This was for
another post on ms.public.broadbandnet.hardware), there
were four
questions in your original reply - will just answer
them here as a batch, in case they might help.
1. Is this happening on wired or wireless connections?
Both.
2. What kind of apps are running on the network at the
time of the crash?
Generally, an AIM client, a bit of web browsing, and
an eMule client or two.
3. What wireless security is turned on (regardless of
the answer to #1)?
WEP, 128 bit.
4. What kind of WAN connection? If PPPoE, is idle
timeout on?
Cable modem.
Clients consist of one Win2K Pro box (wireless) and
two linux boxes (wired). Hardware version of router is
00.00.00.0004. On my side, I can replicate the
conditions which cause a router freeze consistantly.
To cause my router and (perhaps) some other MN-700s to
freeze:
Requirements: A cable/DSL+ net connection, an MN-700
(HW ver 4 - don't know if that matters), a Win2K/XP (for
eMule)
computer hooked up wirelessly to the MN-700 (Win9x and
ME sometimes have problems with a lot of concurrent
connections), and a hard drive with about 40-60 gigs
free - although the router probably will freeze before
it gets near that.
1. Grab a copy of eMule.
(http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?
group_id=71866
/ www.emuleplus.tk / www.emule-project.net)
2. Setup copy number one to have a TCP and UDP clientports
of your choice.
3. Using the base station management tool, forward
those ports to the eMule client computer.
3. Setup another copy of eMule (making sure, if the
specific version of eMule you are using has such a thing,
the checkbox to allow multiple eMules to run at once is
checked) using different TCP and UDP clientports of your
choice.
4. Using the base station management tool, forward
those ports to the eMule client computer.
5. Make sure max connections on each client are set to
500 or so.
6. Also, make sure that the upload bandwidth is capped
for each client, if that is desired - if the upload
speed is maxed out, downloads will have trouble... no
way to get ACKs back.
7. Connect to a server in each client, making sure it
does not report a low ID. (If you have a lowid, it
will either disconnect you or simply report, under the
log tab that: New clientid is xxxx, where XXXX is a
number under 1,000,000. If you have a number over
1,000,000, should be all set!
If a low-id shows up,*something* isn't letting one of the four ports
operate at it should - sometimes port forwarding needs
a double check or a software firewall needs to be
punched through.)
7. Click on Search on client one, type in Linux, (Big
files that are really legal - boo SCO!) set min file size
to 600 megs, then click on
Start. Using shift, select and start a download for
perhaps the first one hundred files. (I know it seems
like a lot. From what I've found a whole lot less will
cause the router to freeze, but would think this
should almost certainly cause such a thing.)
8. In eMule two, do the same, except only start to
download one of the large files.
9. Wait a few hours. (Probably less than 12.)
With any luck, the computer should still be working
fine, but the router should be frozen. Most likely,
this will also work on a wired connection, with only
one eMule client, and with only 30-75 files or so. The
above always will cause a router freeze for me,
though.
The only way to get the router back is to power cycle
it.
It would seem that there are also a bunch of other
scenarios which might cause the same data profile.
(Perhaps a web server which serves files under 10 megs to
a whole bunch of people... or something of that ilk.)
Any help Neel (or anyone else might be able to provide)
would be wonderful.
Thanks for reading this giant post!
Andy
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