So tired of this, keeps killing my internet connection?

V

vsboxerboy

2[H]4U
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Oct 17, 2005
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So here is my setup. I have cox cable comes from the wall to my modem, a Linksys WCG200. This is a wireless gateway whose wireless function is disabled. This box still functions as the router assigning IP addresses to the various clients on my LAN.

Connected via cat5 is my Apple Airport Extreme (Gigabit) which functions as the wireless router. The routing functions for this box have been disabled.

My workstation is hard wired to this box and is running Vista x64. I am trying to download torrents with uTorrent but every time I start downloading with any sort of speed my internet cuts out.

When this happens, I have no connection to the WAN, but my local area network works fine - I am still able to stream video to my XBMC when all this is going on.

Now, I've heard that the problem is the router, the APE, and that it is uTorrent - I really don't know what to fix, what to change, and what to replace. All I know is that this is really pissing me off.

Any help of suggestions or what can I do to further diagnose this problemo.

Thanks guys.
 
I should also add that the WAN is down for not just my workstation but all other computers on my LAN as well. Interestingly enough the XBMC still seems to get feed updates - I think that the computer can't access the DNS for some reason - I think I can still access webpages via the IP address but I need to test that out.
 
It's the router, it can't handle all the connections. My suggestion would be to use an old box, or get one from ebay ~700mhz with 128-256MB ram should do, and put a linux router distro on there. For a low end machine like the one mentioned i'd go with smoothwall or ipcop.

I had the same problem, but now I have a smoothwall box and download torrents almost 24/7 and haven't been down once because of a lost connection.
 
Even a 486 system would do wonders as a router system. I used a 486DX2-66 for this purpose for a long time and it never gave any issues no matter how much traffic I threw at it :)

The issue most SOHO routers seem to have with Bittorrent is the large number of connections it creates per second, which overflows their (way too small) routing table.
 
Do you have Comcast?

Many users have experienced what you are saying when downloading bittorrents with Comcast.
 
Ryan711 said:
It's the router, it can't handle all the connections. My suggestion would be to use an old box, or get one from ebay ~700mhz with 128-256MB ram should do, and put a linux router distro on there. For a low end machine like the one mentioned i'd go with smoothwall or ipcop.

I had the same problem, but now I have a smoothwall box and download torrents almost 24/7 and haven't been down once because of a lost connection.
Click to expand...

agreed, this is an ideal solution considering you don't rely on the router itself for wireless functions. Those specs are overkill though, you could use a freakin 386 for this if you wanted. I ran a 233mhz pentium 1 with 64mb of ram as a gentoo-based router/firewall/ftp/http server in my dorm room a few years ago and my load average was typically in the range of 0.02 :p

once you use a REAL router you'll see how much those dumb little boxed routers suck
 
cap your upload slots per torrent to 2... cap your max upload speed to 35 and see what happens from there.

if not google tcp patch...

also upgrade your router firmware

try utorrent.com
 
Eva_Unit_0 said:
agreed, this is an ideal solution considering you don't rely on the router itself for wireless functions. Those specs are overkill though, you could use a freakin 386 for this if you wanted. I ran a 233mhz pentium 1 with 64mb of ram as a gentoo-based router/firewall/ftp/http server in my dorm room a few years ago and my load average was typically in the range of 0.02 :p

once you use a REAL router you'll see how much those dumb little boxed routers suck
Click to expand...

Depends what you're running for a distro on the box. Would be smarter for the heavy P2P/torrent user....to use a UTM appliance..which scans traffic for bad stuff. Distros like Endian, or IPCop with the Copfilter add-on, or best of all...Untangle. Since all that P2P stuff is crammed with tainted downloads. When you use UTM *nix distros...those old pre-pentiums, pentiums, and even P2 units..are a bit too light.
 
Okay so what do you guys think about letting the airport extreme handle the routing functions - sounds like you guys probably aren't too hot on that right? To be honest I really don't know how I feel about that thing just wanted something to 802.11n with my MBP but am really unimpressed.

Anyhow, should I still keep the WCG200 as my modem or replace that too - I think that I would probably have to replace that as well. So I am looking at getting a new modem, a new router, and using the APE as an access point.

At this point, I don't know that I have the space to have a separate computer running as a router - I live in a fairly small apartment although I have been looking into the possibility of a home server and it has been becoming increasingly attractive.

Given that I have cox as my cable provider, is there any modem that is recommended? If I could see a link to some documentation about the setup of such a DIY router then I might be more interested - I'm sure if I browse smallnetbuilder.com I would find something.

What about using my workstation as a router. It's currently running Vista so I think that would probably exclude that as a possiblity but it is on 24/7 already so that's why I'm reluctant to add another 24/7 machine.
 
Your modem should be fine, I don't think that is causing any of the problem, unless it is one of those with the router/modem built into one, otherwise it should suffice. If you aren't too keen on using a dedicated machine as a router, then the next best thing would probably be one of the higher end dlink routers: the DGL-4500 or its nongaming sister version the dir-655.

I'ave never personally tried any of these, but they are supposed to give better performance than most other routers, though they will still ocassionally drop a connection, just not as frequently as when using a slower router.
 
Okay cool, I effing hate that cable gateway bs - don't want to start flame here but its like an imac one thing breaks and the whole thing might as well be a steaming turd.

As far as building a router goes, what the hell - I have old hardware lying around that I am not using so let's have a shot at it. What software should I be looking at running. I know that other such as Ryan711 mentioned but is there a way that I can do this and use the box for other things...the hardware I have lying around is p4 era so it would be cool if I could use it as a file server, FTP box, maybe even recording TV possibly?
 
lower your max up and down speeds and lower the amount of uploads / downloads allowed, also decrease the amount of connections Options / Preferences / Bittorrent, lower some of those numbers, it may help, but as everyone else said, it is your router
 
I have tried lowering my limits - I'm currently at a max of 50 DL and 10 UL and even that now kills my connection! I halved all of the number of connections as well.
 
I used to have the same problem. However, in my case, it was my modem that kicked the bucket. I swapped out the modem at TWC and all has been well...so far! You might want to try these settings out...

Max Connections: 150
Max UL: 40kbps
Max DL: 0
 
2 possibles, pretty much as jnick suggested:

1) Reduce your max upload speed, if the uplink is saturated, your download speed through the modem can drop to a crawl.
Start at 10k and work your way up until the problem manifests.

2) Reduce the maximum number of connections (not people who can connect to you) that the torrent client can use. Its possible that your modem cannot handle the amount you are telling it to use and ends up tying up all its available connections. These can get hung up as well, requiring a reboot.
ie change Global maximum connections to 100 and if that works, increase until, the problem starts again.
 
Don't want this to sound rude but I'm not sure if it was not clear in my previous post that I had lowered my upload limit to 10 Kb/s and even that is killing my connection, so I see no reason to work my way up as the problem already manifest itself at that speed.

Just yesterday I tried 5 Kb/s upload and 30 Kb/s download and I noticed that my internet slowly started to slow to a crawl and then die. I have to look again at the number of connections I have but this is with only one active torrent (!!) so I doubt that there is an extraordinarily large amount of connections.

Perhaps someone with uTorrent could send me their rates and caps so that I could compare? When I get home I will post what my settings are, but they are unavailable to me at the moment.
 
vsboxerboy said:
Okay cool, I effing hate that cable gateway bs - don't want to start flame here but its like an imac one thing breaks and the whole thing might as well be a steaming turd.

As far as building a router goes, what the hell - I have old hardware lying around that I am not using so let's have a shot at it. What software should I be looking at running. I know that other such as Ryan711 mentioned but is there a way that I can do this and use the box for other things...the hardware I have lying around is p4 era so it would be cool if I could use it as a file server, FTP box, maybe even recording TV possibly?
Click to expand...

If you want an FTP/fileserver/router I can't recommend clark connect enough. I've used it in the past, and it's very good for an all in one box. http://www.clarkconnect.com/

It has everything you could possibly need, even an asterisk server if you are so inclined:D.
 
So is a celeron 420 overkill for a CC box?

Right now I have laying around an intel DH965WH, a gig of ram, a 120GB HDD. I was thinking of getting the antec case from frys from the hot deals forum:

Fry's, BM = Antec NSK 4480 w/ 380w Earthwatts = $59.99
http://shop1.outpost.com/product/5359268#detailed but the price is suppousedly 59.99 in store - I'll have to call and see.

And then I need a proc. A 420 would put me at about $100 for the build or would it be better to just get some old heap? I think I like this approach better as it will use the spare parts I already have just taking up room and it will be low noise, and not fugly.

Oh and I guess I need another NIC too. I've heard that there is problems with gigabit NICs and CC is this still true? I was looking at the CC forums but didn't seem to find a definitive answer.
 
I have this exact same problem with a slightly different setup...

I have Cox, a WRT54GL running DD-WRT, and some netgear switches (the old blue metal kind).

I'm 99% convinced its Windows XP. And I have used the 4226 patch.

Whenever I use torrents from the popular site on my hardwired WinXP SP2 box, its not long (5 mins or less) before the network connection dies. All other connections in the house (hardwired and wireless) are fine. If I use torrents from a less popular and private site it works perfectly without problems day in and day out.

HOWEVER, if I use those same popular torrents on my MacBook (via wireless) it works fine here too. I've done it five or six times in the past 6 months and every time the XP box craps out and the Mac runs just fine.

The only differences are that my XP desktop is hardwired, and the Mac is wireless. I dont think its an issue since my 10/1 connection is still slower than the Wireless G connection.

I went into the event log on XP and saw nothing out of the ordinary.
 
could be your ISP is just packet dropping, and thus as soon as they see p2p traffic (via headers, encryption doesnt work for crap now for ISP's) they could be "poisoning" your line, i know ROgers in canada does it on the upload at least, no matter what upload speed is crap vs download, and at time i do need to reboot the router to get the connection back to normal.
 
I used to have this issue when I was using a local ISP... what I did was open uTorrent --> Options --> Preferences and click BitTorrent in the left pane. Then go down to "Protocol Encryption" and try "Outgoing" set to "Enabled", if that doesn't work try "Forced" (while leaving the "Allow incoming legacy connections" box ticked the whole time).

Then I cap my upload @ 6 and leave download @ 0 and then all the private trackers treat me nicely (I love all of you with seedboxes... zo0o0om).
 
So, I got my surfboard 5120 in, thanks for the reccomendation and I completely removed the wcg200 that was most likely the bottleneck. I am having trouble getting clarkconnect working in gateway mode but as I type this I am hitting 750 kb/s dl using my airport extreme as the router and my WAN still works. Given that, I think I may abandon the whole clarkconnect thing as I don't really need another box sucking up juice if it isn't necessary. Thanks for the help guys!
 
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