Network access fails in RH9 with large file transfers

I have a puzzling problem with sending large files over the internet with
one computer on my network. The computer is a PIII-733, running RH9,
Netgear FA-312 network card, hooked to a Linksys BEFW11S4 router, to cable
modem. The system works fine until I try to send large (>700mb or so) files
to other people. No matter what method I use (FTP server, IRC, etc), the
upload eventually causes the network connection on that computer to fail
completely. At some point - and the amount of data sent is never the same -
the system will eventually stop sending the file. If I try to pull up a web
page or even ping another system on the same network, there is no
connection to the network at all. All network requests completely time out.
Rebooting the system solves the problem, but when I send again, the same
thing happens. I can send the same files from my laptop connected to the
same LAN as this desktop system with no problems. Nothing seems to be
crashing that I can see... the computer works fine, it just has no network
connection.

Anyone got any ideas on what to check? Or what information I can post to
make troubleshooting this a little easier??

TIA
--
--- Scott M ---
--- smaxell[nospam]@adelphia.net ---
--- remove [nospam] to reply

Scott Maxell's <Qgmkb.110581$(E-Mail Removed) t> on
Saturday 18 October 2003 07:02 pm in %group contained all or some of:

> I have a puzzling problem with sending large files over the internet with
> one computer on my network. The computer is a PIII-733, running RH9,
> Netgear FA-312 network card, hooked to a Linksys BEFW11S4 router, to cable
> modem. The system works fine until I try to send large (>700mb or so)
> files to other people. No matter what method I use (FTP server, IRC, etc),
> the upload eventually causes the network connection on that computer to
> fail completely. At some point - and the amount of data sent is never the
> same - the system will eventually stop sending the file. If I try to pull
> up a web page or even ping another system on the same network, there is no
> connection to the network at all. All network requests completely time
> out. Rebooting the system solves the problem, but when I send again, the
> same thing happens. I can send the same files from my laptop connected to
> the same LAN as this desktop system with no problems. Nothing seems to be
> crashing that I can see... the computer works fine, it just has no network
> connection.
>
> Anyone got any ideas on what to check? Or what information I can post to
> make troubleshooting this a little easier??

Do you really need to reboot the machine? You can't ifup the interface or
restart the network service? that would, at least, save some time.

What does ifconfig tell you about the quality of your packet movement?

I have a vague remembrance that a flaky nic could do this. If you have a
spare one of a different type, you might swap it out as an easy test.

RH must have a traffic monitor that you can start before you being the file
xfer. That might give you some information.

Good luck.

Lynn wrote:

> Scott Maxell's <Qgmkb.110581$(E-Mail Removed) t> on
> Saturday 18 October 2003 07:02 pm in %group contained all or some of:
>
>> I have a puzzling problem with sending large files over the internet with
>> one computer on my network. The computer is a PIII-733, running RH9,
>> Netgear FA-312 network card, hooked to a Linksys BEFW11S4 router, to
>> cable modem. The system works fine until I try to send large (>700mb or
>> so) files to other people. No matter what method I use (FTP server, IRC,
>> etc), the upload eventually causes the network connection on that
>> computer to fail completely. At some point - and the amount of data sent
>> is never the same - the system will eventually stop sending the file. If
>> I try to pull up a web page or even ping another system on the same
>> network, there is no connection to the network at all. All network
>> requests completely time out. Rebooting the system solves the problem,
>> but when I send again, the same thing happens. I can send the same files
>> from my laptop connected to the same LAN as this desktop system with no
>> problems. Nothing seems to be crashing that I can see... the computer
>> works fine, it just has no network connection.
>>
>> Anyone got any ideas on what to check? Or what information I can post to
>> make troubleshooting this a little easier??
>
> Do you really need to reboot the machine? You can't ifup the interface or
> restart the network service? that would, at least, save some time.

Actually no... I didn't have to. ifup worked just fine.

>
> What does ifconfig tell you about the quality of your packet movement?

RX packets: 602042 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets: 800016 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:1 carrier:1 collisions:0
txqueuelen:100

>
> I have a vague remembrance that a flaky nic could do this. If you have a
> spare one of a different type, you might swap it out as an easy test.

I swapped the nic out for another one with the same result.

Another thought that occurred to me while messing with this is... maybe it
is a problem with the DHCP lease? If the lease is not being renegotiated
properly when time runs out the connection gets lost? If this were the
case, how might that be solved? I am thinking about changing to static
addressing on my lan anyway... might that help?

--
--- Scott M ---
--- smaxell[nospam]@adelphia.net ---
--- remove [nospam] to reply