Downloads are causing router reset! Please Help!

Hopefully there's a Mac person around that can shed some light on my
problem. I have a 12" G4 Powerbook with 1.25 gig RAM and an Airport
Extreme card. It connects to a Zyxel 660HW router/modem.

The problem that has just started is that when I try to download
anything that is more than say about 2-3mb, either from my XP desktop
(home network) or from internet directly (itunes music for example)
from the Mac, it boots the wireless and the DSL offline. The XP desktop
downloads fine.

I have tried powering off the router/modem and the Mac for a few
minutes and then trying, but the same thing happens. Does anyone have
any idea what would cause this? Until a few days ago, I had no problems
with file transfers, etc. Thanks in advance........Dan

"DanZ" <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>Hopefully there's a Mac person around

What's a MacPerson? Is that a new Apple product?

>that can shed some light on my
>problem. I have a 12" G4 Powerbook with 1.25 gig RAM and an Airport
>Extreme card. It connects to a Zyxel 660HW router/modem.

My guess is that's a Xyxel P-660HW-61. Is this correct?

>The problem that has just started is that when I try to download
>anything that is more than say about 2-3mb, either from my XP desktop
>(home network) or from internet directly (itunes music for example)
>from the Mac, it boots the wireless and the DSL offline. The XP desktop
>downloads fine.
>
>I have tried powering off the router/modem and the Mac for a few
>minutes and then trying, but the same thing happens. Does anyone have
>any idea what would cause this? Until a few days ago, I had no problems
>with file transfers, etc. Thanks in advance........Dan

"Boots the wireless and DSL offline" is a bit vague.
- Are you totally disconnected from the ISP?
- Does the DSL carrier light remain on?
- Or, is the router apparently hung.
- Are you doing this via a wired or wireless connection?
If wireless, see if wired does the same thing.
- Can you login to the web page setup in the router?
If yes, then you can extract the diagnostic info from the log
file to see who initiated the disconnect, or if there was any
error message.

- Firmware version? The latest appears to be 3.40(PE.10)C0.
Verify your exact model number and country (Switzerland???)
before updating the firmware.
http://us.zyxel.com/web/support_down...hp?sqno=116409

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

DanZ <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Hopefully there's a Mac person around that can shed some light on my
> problem. I have a 12" G4 Powerbook with 1.25 gig RAM and an Airport
> Extreme card. It connects to a Zyxel 660HW router/modem.
>
> The problem that has just started is that when I try to download
> anything that is more than say about 2-3mb, either from my XP desktop
> (home network) or from internet directly (itunes music for example)
> from the Mac, it boots the wireless and the DSL offline. The XP desktop
> downloads fine.
>
> I have tried powering off the router/modem and the Mac for a few
> minutes and then trying, but the same thing happens. Does anyone have
> any idea what would cause this? Until a few days ago, I had no problems
> with file transfers, etc. Thanks in advance........Dan

A knowledgeable member of my local Mac user group recently warned about
compatibility issues between Macs and ZyXEL wireless products. He wasn't
specific, but a search in Apple's AirPort discussions area
<http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=140> turned up a
pretty good number of posts about problems with ZyXEL products.

Yes, it is the router/modem you mention and using the wireless, as
opposed to the cat 5 directly connected to the ethernet ports, option,
the light on the wireless connection and on the DSL signal go
completely off for approximately 30 seconds During this time, no
computers can access wireless and/or internet. Wired connection via cat
5 does not have the problem and yes tthe router menu is accessible from
either machine. Mac doesn't automatically reconnect as I have to turn
off airport card and then turn back on. It then connects fine. No other
problems with wireless in regard to internet or itunes wireless
streaming, just downloads in excess of about 2-3 megs. Zyxel firmware
is most recent and I am anxiously waiting for a new version. There is a
known bug in that product that disconnects internet every 30 minutes
due to bugs in the WEP. I'm using MAC filtering only as they have
promised a new version soon......won't hold my breath.

"DanZ" <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>Yes, it is the router/modem you mention and using the wireless, as
>opposed to the cat 5 directly connected to the ethernet ports, option,

>the light on the wireless connection and on the DSL signal go
>completely off for approximately 30 seconds During this time, no
>computers can access wireless and/or internet.

I think that the router is rebooting if both lights go off. Does the
light pattern on the router look like a reboot? If this is the case,
I don't have a clue why a download would initiate a reboot.

As I recall, this router does a beep when it reboots. Do you hear a
beep?

>Wired connection via cat
>5 does not have the problem

That leaves a wireless or firmware problem.

Are you also using a P2P file sharing program? Such programs open
large number of streams, which can hang some routers.

>and yes tthe router menu is accessible from
>either machine. Mac doesn't automatically reconnect as I have to turn
>off airport card and then turn back on. It then connects fine. No other
>problems with wireless in regard to internet or itunes wireless
>streaming, just downloads in excess of about 2-3 megs.

My wild guess(tm) is that something is wrong with the Zyxel firmware
and that large (wireless) downloads are causing a reboot. Exactly
why, I don't know. If you feel desperate, reset the Zyxel back to
defaults, manually setup all the settings, and try again. Do not
restore the setting from a backup. This may be a waste of time, but
it's the only thing I can think of trying. Well, you could reload the
firmware in case that was corrupted.

>Zyxel firmware
>is most recent and I am anxiously waiting for a new version. There is a
>known bug in that product that disconnects internet every 30 minutes
>due to bugs in the WEP.

The known bug is with WPA, not WEP. It disconnects every time WPA
initiates a re-key. This has been a known problem for at least 6
months. If Zyxel can't fix anything that serious within 6 months,
then there's something wrong.
| http://groups.google.com/group/alt.i...ca070e8c526c24

Incidentally, I have a problem with users that proclaim that their
firmware is "the latest" or that their Windoze has been updated to the
"latest patches". Upon furthur investigation, I usually find that
such systems are out of date. Kindly supply the firmware version to
be sure.

>I'm using MAC filtering only as they have
>promised a new version soon......won't hold my breath.

You missed one item on my list of questions. Can you get to the log
output in the router and see what's happening? If it's rebooting, it
will show it there.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Here is the output of the logs:

05/30/2006 16:02:47 WEB Login Successfully User:admin
2 05/30/2006 16:02:15 ppp:IPCP Closing
3 05/30/2006 16:02:15 ppp:LCP Closing
4 05/30/2006 16:02:15 board 0 line 0 channel 0, call 9, C02 Call
Terminated CALL DETAIL RECORD
5 05/30/2006 16:02:10 Time initialized by NTP server xxx.xxx.xxx.x.x

Also, here is the firmware version:

ZyNOS F/W Version: V3.40(PE.9) | 05/13/2005

Not sure is this will help, but here it is. Thanks.......

"DanZ" <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>05/30/2006 16:02:47 WEB Login Successfully User:admin
>2 05/30/2006 16:02:15 ppp:IPCP Closing
>3 05/30/2006 16:02:15 ppp:LCP Closing
>4 05/30/2006 16:02:15 board 0 line 0 channel 0, call 9, C02 Call
>Terminated CALL DETAIL RECORD

Was this log after or during a failed download? I don't think so.
IPCP and LCP closing is what a DSL modem does when it disconnects. The
problem is who or what is inititating this disconnect. If this is
immediately after turning on the router, there's something wrong with
the DSL end of things. It should NOT disconnect by itself. However,
I can't tell who or what is initiating the disconnect.

Do you have some type of activity timeout setup on the DSL connection?
Something like "disconect after xx minutes idle time". The Zyxel
P-660HW-61 might think you're idle while downloading. Just a wild
guess(tm).

>Also, here is the firmware version:
>ZyNOS F/W Version: V3.40(PE.9) | 05/13/2005

Current version is 3.40(PE.10)C0 on 11-07-2005
You're one version behind the times.
http://us.zyxel.com/web/support_down...hp?sqno=116409
However this was the version that introduces the WPA problem.
According to my readings, your version doesn't have the WPA problem.
However, it may have other problems including the current one. Update.

>Not sure is this will help, but here it is. Thanks.......

Numbers are always helpful.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

One reason for the lack of firmware update is that Zyxel said that
PE.10 did not cure the problem of WEP disconnection, which was about
every 30 minutes to the T. I'd like to secure with WPA, but did't see
that option in the router setup. To your knowledge, can this one be set
up for WPA? If so, anything special in the menu I should look for?

At this point, I'll update firmware and at very least see if that helps
the Mac problem. As far as an activity timeout, that's not the case as
I leave it idle all the time and the XP machines can download very
large files (and transfer comp to comp) with no problem.

I think log is after failure. I can try to duplicate problem again
(it's easy to do!) and see what the logs say after.

01/01/2000 00:00:44 ppp:IPCP Opening
14 05/30/2006 22:36:29 Time initialized by NTP server 129. 192.168.1.1
15 05/30/2006 22:36:37 Firewall default policy: UDP (W to W/PRESTIGE)
202.99.172.171:41096 212.152.9.86:1026 ACCESS BLOCK
16 05/30/2006 22:36:41 WEB Login Successfully User:admin

>From what I can see, there is no log to show when the disconnect
happened, just the reconnect. anyway, will try firmware and see what
happens.....thanks

> At this point, I'll update firmware and at very least see if that helps
> the Mac problem. As far as an activity timeout, that's not the case as
> I leave it idle all the time and the XP machines can download very
> large files (and transfer comp to comp) with no problem.
>

It looks like the firmware update has solved the problem for now. I
received it directly from Zyxel and is not published due that there are
other things, that do no affect me, that are still an issue in the beta
firmware. WPA is active and seems to be working with no disconnections
as well.

If anyone else has similar problems with the Zyxel 660HW-61, I would be
happy to send the firmware version to them. Thanks for the assistance
with this.....Dan