How to test for connection drops?

Hi,

I've had my new WGT624 for about a week. Things seem to be working
fairly well; However over the past few days, I've noticed a few
instances of apparent connection drops: Several times when listening
to Real Audio feeds I've been disconnected. Another time while
downloading a file, I got a "connection reset by server" message.
These could very well have been flukes but considering that I just got
the router, I would like to be sure. Is there any software I could run
on the PC that would hang out in the background, and monitor the
consistancy of my internet connection?

Also in another thread, Jeff Lieberman refered to win XP's 802.1x
authentication. Is this something I should turn off as well and if so,
where is it? Note at the moment for purposes of troubleshooting, I'm
running an open network with no encryption.

Thanks,


--Al

"Al Puzzuoli said:
> Hi,
>
> I've had my new WGT624 for about a week. Things seem to be working
> fairly well; However over the past few days, I've noticed a few
> instances of apparent connection drops: Several times when
listening
> to Real Audio feeds I've been disconnected. Another time while
> downloading a file, I got a "connection reset by server" message.
> These could very well have been flukes but considering that I just
got
> the router, I would like to be sure. Is there any software I could
run
> on the PC that would hang out in the background, and monitor the
> consistancy of my internet connection?

Problems usually show up when the network activity is high as in your
Audio feeds and downloads.
Timing becomes a critical issue. I have found that if I make my
wireless packet size (fragmentation threshold)
which is normally 2346 and make it the same size as the ethernet
packets 1518 that it appears to
perform better on exhaustive downloads. The Ap spends less time
converting packet sizes and pays a little more attention
to other things. It can reduce throughput but on error retransmissions
it takes less processing work.
This can be configured in your wireless adapter properties if you
would like to give it try.

>
> Also in another thread, Jeff Lieberman refered to win XP's 802.1x
> authentication. Is this something I should turn off as well and if
so,
> where is it? Note at the moment for purposes of troubleshooting,
I'm
> running an open network with no encryption.

This is under the wireless connection properties, usually right click
your connection in the tray and select properties
browse around till you find the authentication tab and there is a
checkbox there.
In winxpsp1 this was by default checked but in SP2 it is unchecked by
default.

You can try disabling XP's Wireless Zero Configuration Server that may be
seeking out other networks in your area and trying to connect and is
dropping the connection.

Duane

Al Puzzuoli <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>Is there any software I could run
>on the PC that would hang out in the background, and monitor the
>consistancy of my internet connection?

http://www.pingplotter.com

Thanks to both Airhead and duane for your responses, I'll give your
suggestions a try and see what happens. one interesting thing is I
never used to have dificulties when I was using my old d-link di-713P.
I got the new router but am still using old Orinoco Gold 802.11b cards
so I wonder if there are some protocol issues between the older cards
and the newer router?
Perhaps it's worth looking for the latest Orinoco gold firmware as
well...

On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 02:34:42 -0500, Al Puzzuoli <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>I've had my new WGT624 for about a week. Things seem to be working
>fairly well; However over the past few days, I've noticed a few
>instances of apparent connection drops: Several times when listening
>to Real Audio feeds I've been disconnected. Another time while
>downloading a file, I got a "connection reset by server" message.
>These could very well have been flukes but considering that I just got
>the router, I would like to be sure. Is there any software I could run
>on the PC that would hang out in the background, and monitor the
>consistancy of my internet connection?

This isn't exactly what you want, but it will monitor the traffic. If
it stops, you've been disconnected:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/rema...t=-1~mode=flat

Download a copy of fping 2.09 at:
http://www.kwakkelflap.com/fping.html
It's an MSDOS program that does a better job than what Microsoft
foists on the GUM (great unwashed masses) with Windoze. Run it
continuously with 5 seconds between pings. If a packet evaporates or
the connection is lost, the sequence number will show an error and
beep on a timeout. See example below:

fping www.panix.com -c -t 5000 -b-
Fast pinger version 2.09
(c) Wouter Dhondt (http://www.kwakkelflap.com)
Pinging www.panix.com [166.84.62.125] with 32 bytes of data every 5000
ms:
Reply[1] from 166.84.62.125: bytes=32 time=98 ms TTL=236
Reply[2] from 166.84.62.125: bytes=32 time=95 ms TTL=236
Reply[3] from 166.84.62.125: bytes=32 time=93 ms TTL=236
Reply[4] from 166.84.62.125: bytes=32 time=98 ms TTL=236
Reply[5] from 166.84.62.125: bytes=32 time=99 ms TTL=236
Ping statistics for 166.84.62.125:
Packets: Sent = 5, Received = 5, Lost = 0 (0% loss)
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 93 ms, Maximum = 99 ms, Average = 97 ms



--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# 831.421.6491 digital_pager (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 02:34:42 -0500, Al Puzzuoli <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
> >I've had my new WGT624 for about a week. Things seem to be working
> >fairly well; However over the past few days, I've noticed a few
> >instances of apparent connection drops: Several times when listening
> >to Real Audio feeds I've been disconnected. Another time while
> >downloading a file, I got a "connection reset by server" message.
> >These could very well have been flukes but considering that I just got
> >the router, I would like to be sure. Is there any software I could run
> >on the PC that would hang out in the background, and monitor the
> >consistancy of my internet connection?
>
> This isn't exactly what you want, but it will monitor the traffic. If
> it stops, you've been disconnected:
> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/rema...t=-1~mode=flat
>
> Download a copy of fping 2.09 at:
> http://www.kwakkelflap.com/fping.html
> It's an MSDOS program that does a better job than what Microsoft
> foists on the GUM (great unwashed masses) with Windoze. Run it
> continuously with 5 seconds between pings. If a packet evaporates or
> the connection is lost, the sequence number will show an error and
> beep on a timeout. See example below:
>
> fping www.panix.com -c -t 5000 -b-
> Fast pinger version 2.09
> (c) Wouter Dhondt (http://www.kwakkelflap.com)
> Pinging www.panix.com [166.84.62.125] with 32 bytes of data every 5000
> ms:
> Reply[1] from 166.84.62.125: bytes=32 time=98 ms TTL=236
> Reply[2] from 166.84.62.125: bytes=32 time=95 ms TTL=236
> Reply[3] from 166.84.62.125: bytes=32 time=93 ms TTL=236
> Reply[4] from 166.84.62.125: bytes=32 time=98 ms TTL=236
> Reply[5] from 166.84.62.125: bytes=32 time=99 ms TTL=236
> Ping statistics for 166.84.62.125:
> Packets: Sent = 5, Received = 5, Lost = 0 (0% loss)
> Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
> Minimum = 93 ms, Maximum = 99 ms, Average = 97 ms
>
>
>
>
Great,

Thanks!