Cache/DNS problems...

[mrsdoubtfyre]

Does anyone here have advice on how to fix an internet problem?

It is complex...we are going down after being successful online for an hour.
We have a router, and only one computer is affected..the main one.

I searched the net and found a DNS flush to remove stuff from some microsoft file (I already cleared the internet tools cache and raised it to 100MB.)

I found a website that says when you remove SpyBot discoveries, they can
contaminate your DNS. I don't know what a DNS is or does. Don't want to
dump it if it will make things worse, etc.

We have talked to AT & T and the ethernet light is what goes down, and they said it was my computer, and wanted $99 to fix it. We disabled MotiveSB in startup thinking it was conflicting, but we still get downs frequently unless we totally turn off the unit for several hours. Then it appears we can cruise the net as usual.

My husband's new computer will not run on the router with this unit. He has VPN connection. We have to turn this one off. The wifi upstairs will run however. That is another pain in the keister. His computer is new..and this is when this all started.
Any thoughts are welcome.

[Mike Weins]

Don't know which program you used to flush the DNS, but you don't need any programs to do so. Most of them are crap and do other things behind your back anyways.

I suggest unplugging the modem and router for 15 minutes to reset them. Plug them back in, turn on computer, click start, click run, type ipconfig /flushdns

When it's done reboot.

[mrsdoubtfyre]

We did what you suggested. It didn't change anything.

I get a certain amount of time on the net, after a cold reboot. If I go to YouTube or watch any video, that time shortens. I switched the port on the router, closed off all things like the back up drive. Closed the ATT support tool, we disabled in msconfig MotiveSB..thinking it was the ATT programs (I had had a conflict last year in a ps***.dll file which we renamed then.) There are several more duplicates of this file in MotiveSB...so it is disabled for now.

Sunday I could cruise the net easily. During the week, that changes.
Also if my husband logs on his new computer with VPN, cable connect to the router, it throws this unit off. So we turn this one off when he is using his.
He completely disconnects his cable (work will not allow wifi for security reasons so his is disabled).

When you cold boot...you clear the RAM. Is this a RAM problem do you think?
or an ethernet card error? Or a router needing to be replaced? The laptop upstairs runs off this router in wifi, and only twice has failed. I have 512 RAM and this Dell is only 2 yrs old. It is taking longer and longer to link to my home page Google when I turn on, too.

I've been on the net looking up conflicts, that is how we found the DNS flush.

We thought this was the new laptop conflict with my husband's new HP from work. That is when it became very acute. But I was getting failure to load pages before that. Now we cannot leave it on at all, I have to turn off after visiting the net, in order for it to not crash out. When it crashes, the ethernet light goes off, and the router hits all 4 ports lighting up, and my icons have a red X. They blink every 5 sec or so. I can sometimes squeeze in a command if I do it fast enough!

Any thoughts? We are totally stumped. We do antivirus Avast and Spybot once a week.
We don't download, visit **** or internet drug purchase sites, don't watch movies TV online, or play games. It does seem that YouTube or Yahoo videos --the short ones, really eat up my "given" time, so I go down sooner.

[Mike Weins]

I suggest the next step is to visit trendmicro and run their online virus scan. Some trojans and viruses can hide from your scans because they change the parameters in the scanning code.

Online scanners are the most up to date and won't be affected. After you download the scanner run it and see what it says.

After that the next step would be to download and run "hijack this".

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/programs.php

You can either pm the log or post it here.

I'm afraid I can't be much help with wireless issues. I've had very little experience with them and never bothered to learn them.

Routers typically don't go bad unless they over heat. Same with modems. It is possible that you have a RAM issue, be it a failing stick or a resource hog that you haven't found yet. However it's not probable. RAM is either always good or always bad (bad from the moment it's installed) and rarely goes from good to bad.

[mrsdoubtfyre]

The wifi is working okay...

I found this today and want to try it first:
http://www.watchingthenet.com/repair-windows-xp-tcp-network-settings-with-winsock-xp-fix-utility.html

Tomorrow we are going to disconnect the router, and run the desktop
on the modem alone. See if the router is at fault.

Today my husband's help desk finally called back and said he should take his unit in and have the local techie reset the network settings --which they could have done when they swapped his data to the new laptop. So that is why I searched the winsock fix.

I did look at the Hijack this...it scared me...said it was not for the novice.
I'll have to wait til my son can come here to handle that one.

Flushing the cache makes the thing really really slow now, since those pages have to load directly.

But I did think of trojan...I was thinking about Trojan Hunter...do you know
if that works well?

Tomorrow we will study what you recommended. It is certainly a weird thing all of a sudden. The winsock site says removing spyware with spybot which is what we do, corrupts winsock. So we will try that first. It is the most logical.
I'll let you know, since this is a learning experience... (and very frustrating too).

[Mike Weins]

I've seen the claims that removing spyware with Spybot corrupts winsock. Personally I believe that to be a bunch of bull spouted by people with other motives. I am also inclined to think that the actual spyware is what corrupted winsock and that by removing the spyware it causes winsock to not work properly. This happens with some ad ware as well, they manipulate system files and when removed the affected system files cause havoc.

I've been using Spybot since 2001 and have had zero problems with it corrupting anything.

Hijack this is very easy to use. The novice disclaimer comes from knowing what you can safely remove and what will cause you problems if you remove.

Running the scan and saving a log file is no more dangerous than typing a reply here :)

[mrsdoubtfyre]

It found one adware... Funweb
and one malware _BHo_myway

I removed those 2. There were 5 cookies...id ones..I left those. Thinking
they were passwords. They were not autochecked as important.

They recommended a second scan...but that stalled/failed.

I just stalled on a PDF searching the net...so my connection is still wonkey.

You think Hijack will find something, still hidden there? Trojan Hunter has a free 30 day...I might try that...gotta confer with hubby first.

Right now I am flickering on/off and can only post if I hit the 5 sec on portion. sigh.

[mrsdoubtfyre]

Surprise surprise!!

We rebooted the modem and router this morning.
My husband (who has used with cable this router with his VPN)...cannot log on to his server at all today.

So I rebooted this desktop after HouseCall this early am...and I am running
like butter....it hasn't been like this since I can remember!

So I wonder if it will stall out? Maybe not? I've been online a long time, almost 2hrs.

Could it have been that malware MyWay? I looked it up on Google and found that it is certainly a very malllll ware. It somehow hooks into your browser.

Crossing fingers and toes!

So, Thanks, Mike
Things are going well so far.
the only red x I have seen today is this one:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c256/mrsdoubtyre/Kitten_redX.gif

[Mike Weins]

To be honest it's hard to say for sure what might have been the problem since I'm not there. I'm so much better when I'm hands on. Diagnosing and troubleshooting over the net or the phone can be a pita :D

[mrsdoubtfyre]

We are slowly getting better.

Today we isolated the router. I don't go down at all when it is out of the loop.
My son wanted us to do that, so we did it this afternoon.

This morning my husband couldn't link up to his server. So his computer was unplugged. And I worked for 3 hrs before I started stalling out.

So we unplugged everything, did our errands, etc. and he came back and ran his computer for 2 hrs while this was unplugged. Then he logged out, and I logged in and poof... crash. So we took the router out of the circuit.

And this runs normally now without it. And for long periods. That led us to a router site that evaluates them, and also Netgear which is what we have. I must confess I don't understand 90% of what was on both sites! Sheeesh...
it is worse than medico speak! :p

Do you think this one is too small... it is 50MB for what we are doing? Could my husband's computer be so much faster than his old one, as to clog it up? Do we need to upgrade? If this one were faulty wouldn't it just not work? This is the first router we have had, and it is just over a year old. It has 4 ports for cables.
The wifi part seems to work okay (with about 2 times failing in all the time we have been struggling with this since Dec 6th). We get a 60% signal upstairs, which runs the laptop well. (that unit is faster than this 2 yr old desktop).

So now my paranoia about my files/memory has gone away. Now we just have to figure out what to do.

You've been great so far to help.

[Mike Weins]

Personally I don't like to use routers unless I have to. I prefer to use hubs. Hubs are old school and shouldn't be used with wifi though.

Look into a broadband router if you have dsl or cable as that will make a big difference.

I'll do some looking and talking to a few folks and come up with 2 or 3 suggestions for which ones to look at :)

[mrsdoubtfyre]

I wish there were a book on this!

This is our router.
http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-WGR614-Mbps-Wireless-Router/dp/B00008SCFL/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1197812448&sr=8-1

Today we will do the CD manual... try and figure it out.
We are snowed in anyway! :p

The Amazon reviews are equally divided... LOVE/HATE...

So perhaps we have to reconfig the router for my husband's unit? It runs on a
cable, it is NOT wifi. (that was disabled by his work for security reasons).

edit~~ we just found 4 firmware updates for this model router! Before buying a new one, we're going to try
that.
This is the one we thought we'd buy if necessary:
http://www.amazon.com/Linksys-WRT54G-Wireless-G-Router/dp/B00007KDVI/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1197815283&sr=8-1

We only run the wifi for the upstairs laptop. And that was not affected much by all this. It is the Cable connections which are wonkey. This unit and my husband's new unit connect to the ports directly. We are thinking back that my son set this up...that is why we are clueless. (this happens when you get to be 60!) I think my son even bought it for us... but he has company all weekend and isn't available to help for a while.

This morning this unit failed...so we just pulled the plug on the router, for 10 sec and plugged it back in, and voila...I can post here. Don't know how long that will last however.

[Mike Weins]

It is sounding more and more like the routers going out. Hopefully the firmware updates fix it.

If not here's another router to consider http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DIR-655-Extreme-Wireless-Router/dp/B000LIFB7S/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1197828030&sr=1-3

[mrsdoubtfyre]

Well, Mike,

My husband's manager took this problem higher up...to head of local computer services. Guess what? The "new generation" computers being distributed to agents this month and next, have a security feature that only allows IT to
be online in a network. So it is in fact crashing us on purpose! And the techies don't even know yet!
We don't know if it has permanently corrupted us, which I suspect it has, since
I can only use the router for 2-3 hrs max if there is no log on with the "devil unit" anyway.

So a new router may be needed. But my son is going to do the downloads on the firmware patches, to see if that fixes anything. He doesn't want us to do it alone, because of saving settings etc. So he is planning on installing a more
RAM and a larger harddrive for us for Xmas, so he will just download those patches then.

I am so sorry to take up your time. But just in case some other poster runs into this, at least you'll know what to recommend! I'm glad I didn't order a new router yet...it might have been useless.

We spent so much time on this...I am so PO'd I can't even think straight.
You'd think they would warn people, to avoid all this agony! How bogue is that ?, just letting people run into snags and worry for nothing!

What is really odd tho, is that the wifi is working on this laptop, while my hubby is online downstairs! He told me ---"shush...don't tell em...it might change again!"
I appreciate all your advice...and will save it for the future as well. You have been very generous!

[Mike Weins]

Well now that's just unbelieveable. I think I know why you still get booted even when his comp isn't connected. Each computer on a network has an id assigned to it. My guess is that his comptuer told the router to disallow access to all computers except his by blocking their ids.

Although I'm not as sure as to how they did this exactly. Supposedly the routers firmware is secured and can't be changed by other computers, only by firmware updates.

To make sure I understand things correctly, would you mind telling me how many comps you have and how they connect to the net? There may be a way around one of them having to use the router and hopefully keep the others from being kicked off.

[mrsdoubtfyre]

My son doesn't believe it either, or the experts he works with at the software
company.

If my husband does NOT log on at all that day... I run better.
But I have to start from a cold boot.

After he runs his we boot all 3 things...this unit, the DSL and the router.

But I still cannot leave this on all night like I used to. I can squeeze up to 3 hrs this way. The only way I can be "normal" on the desktop is to bypass the router completely.

So my husband is emailing the union rep (who knows all the gossip) and also someone else to verify this situation. He does not trust the computer manager, whom no one really likes. That guy could just be a passive aggressive creep, for all we know!

So the plan is to do the 3 upgrades to the router. See what that does. Perhaps if weather permitting this weekend... I won't let my son drive the long distance in crappy dangerous weather.

There is always the possibility of some new security thingy borrowed from the military or FBI or something. The fact that the techs themselves do not know about this, is puzzling too.

1)We have the home unit...Dell desktop Dimension 4700 --2 yrs old--cable connected to one port.

2)We have a new Dell laptop Inspiron E1505 --1 yr old with wifi...uses wifi thru the router to connect to internet. This is upstairs and was a backup for my husband because I am on the net alot. He is used to laptops and I am not and don't like typing on them.

Then we have the new devil laptop computer HP compaq nc6400 since Dec 6th, when this all started. It is connected by cable to router port.
As soon as he logged it on, I went poof on the desktop on that date. (his old Compaq --over 4yrs old--- worked fine on the DSL/router connection.)

We have a 4 port router. WGR614 v6 NetGear

What really makes me mad is that my husband uses the devil laptop at odd times because he has to do flex. His networks are not good at the govt and when the Westcoast logs on during the week, it clogs up the system. So he sometimes works late at night sending cases, thru the secured network (the program is called ERAP) to avoid the slowdowns or frank downs. So this really really screws me up...since the times can vary when he is online. Hard to organize etc. He also goes on audits.. and is out of the house based on appointments.

I personally think the router got confused/corrupted somehow. We were just fine before Dec 6th.

I was thinking today, maybe we should convert this desktop to wifi...it would be cheaper than a new DSL line for the devil laptop (which may be our only solution). That would dedicate the ports to the devil. LOLOLOL

[Mike Weins]

Ok just so I understand everything, your desktop pc is connected to the router with a cable. Is this a round cable (as in cable tv cable) or the flat ethernet cable?

Does the router connect to the modem with the round cable or the ethernet cable?

Reason I ask is that it may be possible to put a splitter on the modem and have your desktop connect directly to the modem through the spliiter, and have the devil computer connect via the router (and the router connects to the other side of the splitter on the modem).

[mrsdoubtfyre]

Ok just so I understand everything, your desktop pc is connected to the router with a cable. Is this a round cable (as in cable tv cable) or the flat ethernet cable?

Does the router connect to the modem with the round cable or the ethernet cable?

Reason I ask is that it may be possible to put a splitter on the modem and have your desktop connect directly to the modem through the spliiter, and have the devil computer connect via the router (and the router connects to the other side of the splitter on the modem).

All ethernet cables...the wire is round, but the connector heads are all flat like a telephone jack.

A splitter.... this is a good idea. We will investigate this... My husband thinks this will degrade the speed? He says the DSL is in series, which means "something". We do have a second phone line but the govt does not allow us to deduct expenses for my husband's job. We already pay for the internet, printer/fax, phone line, etc. Adding another DSL will be out of our pocket. Since I retired in July, we have much less $$ coming in. The only thing the govt provides is a phone card to pay for long distance on that phone line.
(since non-audit work is done here--making appointments, dealing with clients etc).

We'll investigate the splitter...perhaps it will fix the problem.
Thanks...Mike.

[mrsdoubtfyre]

Well, Mike, today was computer surgery day.

I now have 512 more RAM and a new 350 gig hard drive. Much faster and smoother and more quiet (the other hard drive was chugging along loudly).

My son felt that a new router was in order, and it was on sale at Best Buy anyway. So he went over there and got a Linksys one. Everything is much better. No crashes so far.

We had some high winds, and DSL cut out for an hour. But that was temporary.
We are now running well.

So now we know that routers work and don't work at the same time!
His roommate went home to Boston for Xmas, and called while my son was here. He plugged his laptop into the home router, and crashed that one!

Thanks for all your help, Mike. And Merry Xmas too!

Rather the coincidence!