zyxel 660hw performance

Was round at a neighbours last night. He recently bought one of the
above. I have not had a chance to poke around myself but before I do I
thought I would ask here. He has this weird problem. There is one PC
connected via ethernet and two laptops using wireless. If neither
laptop is on then the PC works. Both laptops work fine at the same
time. But any laptop comes on when the PC is on and the connection on
the PC "quote dies". Now one of the laptops (both belong to the kids)
is almost certainly running bittorrent or similar but I would not have
thought that it would stop the PC browsing. The laptops don't seem to
affect each other, so it looks on the surface like some conflict
between wired/wireless.

TIA
--
Regards
Dave Saville

NB Remove nospam. for good email address

Dave Saville wrote:
> Was round at a neighbours last night. He recently bought one of the
> above. I have not had a chance to poke around myself but before I do I
> thought I would ask here. He has this weird problem. There is one PC
> connected via ethernet and two laptops using wireless. If neither
> laptop is on then the PC works. Both laptops work fine at the same
> time. But any laptop comes on when the PC is on and the connection on
> the PC "quote dies". Now one of the laptops (both belong to the kids)
> is almost certainly running bittorrent or similar but I would not have
> thought that it would stop the PC browsing. The laptops don't seem to
> affect each other, so it looks on the surface like some conflict
> between wired/wireless.
>
> TIA

Are they all using DHCP? If the router is "on when in use" rather than
continuous, there is a possibility that a fixed address (PC) could
conflict with a laptop dynamically assigned address (IIRC the router
forgets previously assigned addresses when off).

Are the addresses assigned statically? IIRC, this router requires static
DHCP addresses outside the pool, whereas the Netgear I currently use
requires them within the pool.

PeeGee
--
The reply address is a spam trap. All mail is reported as spam.
"Nothing should be able to load itself onto a computer without the
knowledge or consent of the computer user. Software should also be able
to be removed from a computer easily."
Peter Cullen, Microsoft Chief Privacy Strategist (Computing 18 Aug 05)

Dave Saville, in article <fV45K0OBJxbE-pn2-
d82TmoZ2gtub@localhost>, says...
>Was round at a neighbours last night. He recently bought one of the
>above. I have not had a chance to poke around myself but before I do I
>thought I would ask here. He has this weird problem. There is one PC
>connected via ethernet and two laptops using wireless. If neither
>laptop is on then the PC works. Both laptops work fine at the same
>time. But any laptop comes on when the PC is on and the connection on
>the PC "quote dies". Now one of the laptops (both belong to the kids)
>is almost certainly running bittorrent or similar but I would not have
>thought that it would stop the PC browsing. The laptops don't seem to
>affect each other, so it looks on the surface like some conflict
>between wired/wireless.

I run the same router type. Normally I'm an all wired set-up,
but have noticed no problems when others have been here with
wireless - other than one of wireless coverage, since I've a
"bad" building from a screening perspective. Since the
wireless users can connect, I assume he has the wireless
correctly set-up - but check he has encryption turned on.

Could it be a simple throughput problem that is only noticed
when he has those large throughput users on line? You can
check the CPU utilisation via one of the router's pages. I've
not noticed this with two or more wired users hammering the
ADSL connection, though. Does it get better if both wireless
users are close to the router> If so, could it be wireless
error problems?
--
JohnW.
Replace the obvious with co.uk in 2 places to mail me.

JohnW wrote:
> Dave Saville, in article <fV45K0OBJxbE-pn2-
> d82TmoZ2gtub@localhost>, says...
>> Was round at a neighbours last night. He recently bought one of the
>> above. I have not had a chance to poke around myself but before I do I
>> thought I would ask here. He has this weird problem. There is one PC
>> connected via ethernet and two laptops using wireless. If neither
>> laptop is on then the PC works. Both laptops work fine at the same
>> time. But any laptop comes on when the PC is on and the connection on
>> the PC "quote dies". Now one of the laptops (both belong to the kids)
>> is almost certainly running bittorrent or similar but I would not have
>> thought that it would stop the PC browsing. The laptops don't seem to
>> affect each other, so it looks on the surface like some conflict
>> between wired/wireless.
>
> I run the same router type. Normally I'm an all wired set-up,
> but have noticed no problems when others have been here with
> wireless - other than one of wireless coverage, since I've a
> "bad" building from a screening perspective. Since the
> wireless users can connect, I assume he has the wireless
> correctly set-up - but check he has encryption turned on.
>
> Could it be a simple throughput problem that is only noticed
> when he has those large throughput users on line? You can
> check the CPU utilisation via one of the router's pages. I've
> not noticed this with two or more wired users hammering the
> ADSL connection, though. Does it get better if both wireless
> users are close to the router> If so, could it be wireless
> error problems?

It is almost certainly some sort of local IP addressing issue.

And probably nothing to do with the router at all.

On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 12:34:48 UTC, "Dave Saville"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

This morning I got to look at the problem first hand instead of what
the kids said :-)

Just to remind you the setup is two laptops using wireless and one
wired PC using LAN port 1. My neighbour had reset the Zyxel to factory
and put in the login details. The laptops were not on and the PC could
access the net. I checked it's IP and it was fixed, but not in the
DHCP range. But just to make sure it was getting all the correct DNS
etc. I changed it over to DHCP. Still working.

We then fired up the laptops. Both connected and would browse the net.
The PC at this point stopped doing so.

ipconfig /all showed valid lease and the router, 192.168.1.1 as DHCP,
DNS and default gateway. Netstat -r also looked reasonable.

The PC can ping the router.
The PC cannot ping anything else - even the laptops on the LAN
nslookup fails with cannot connect to server on 192.168.1.1
This state of affairs continues even after the laptops are
disconnected.
A lease renew does not fix it.
I did not have time to check if a reboot or router reboot fixes the
problem.

During all this the laptops were happily surfing................
--
Regards
Dave Saville

NB Remove nospam. for good email address

"Dave Saville" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:fV45K0OBJxbE-pn2-dlBb9dPZgV2H@localhost...
> On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 12:34:48 UTC, "Dave Saville"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> This morning I got to look at the problem first hand instead of what
> the kids said :-)
>
> Just to remind you the setup is two laptops using wireless and one
> wired PC using LAN port 1. My neighbour had reset the Zyxel to factory
> and put in the login details. The laptops were not on and the PC could
> access the net. I checked it's IP and it was fixed, but not in the
> DHCP range. But just to make sure it was getting all the correct DNS
> etc. I changed it over to DHCP. Still working.
>
> We then fired up the laptops. Both connected and would browse the net.
> The PC at this point stopped doing so.
>
> ipconfig /all showed valid lease and the router, 192.168.1.1 as DHCP,
> DNS and default gateway. Netstat -r also looked reasonable.
>
> The PC can ping the router.
> The PC cannot ping anything else - even the laptops on the LAN
> nslookup fails with cannot connect to server on 192.168.1.1
> This state of affairs continues even after the laptops are
> disconnected.
> A lease renew does not fix it.
> I did not have time to check if a reboot or router reboot fixes the
> problem.
>
> During all this the laptops were happily surfing................

OK lets simplify things a bit.

Disable the wireless on the router, and disable wireless on both laptops.
Power off everything
Power on router
Connect PC to router, power on PC
On PC, ping router continuously.
On PC, confirm you can browse internet

Connect laptop1 to router using Ethernet cable, power up laptop
Watch the ping on PC - does it stop? If so, exactly when in the startup
process of the laptop?
On laptop, what does ipconfig /all report?
Can laptop ping router?
Can laptop ping PC?
Can PC ping laptop?

Now add laptop2 via Ethernet and repeat tests

By now if your problem is repeatable you will have seen some failures.
Power everything off and start the same sequence of tests. Does the same
failure occur at the same point?

Report back here the exact point at which the first failure occurrs and we
will see if we can help further.

--
Graham J

Went back last night with my OS/2 laptop ie not Windows.

The PC was in a working state. Plugged my laptop in, wired, and both
could browse the net. The only odd thing at this stage was that
nslookup would not work on my box due to being unable to parse
/etc/resolv2 - looking at the file it was obvious that the router was
not passing a domain name. Fixed that in the router.

Then I switched the laptop to wireless - NO change. Both PC and laptop
could still browse. Note I kept using new pages to avoid cache
problems. At this stage I realised that the first time I had tried,
last Sunday, I was misled by using win boxes so my conclusion about
ping was erroneous. They seem to be set not to respond to pings which
is why the LAN would not ping and the only WAN address I could
remember also is not responding :-(

So as the PC was happy with my laptop wireless we fired up one of the
WIFI win laptops. The PC stopped browsing. After a bit of faffing
about I find that it is happy with IP's - it was DNS that was screwed.

I changed the adaptor to use a public DNS server and lo it
immediatelystarted to browse once more. Somehow I managed to find that
DNS server using my laptop which was still kind of working - but then
Firefox caches all sorts of info. The PC was using IE of course.

We then fired up the second WIFI laptop and things continued to work.
Just to be sure we shut everything down and restarted all four and the
router - The PC and the two laptops worked fine, but now *my* laptop
could not browse. I changed /etc/resolv2 to the same server as I had
set on the PC and mine burst into life, it had of course been given
the router address via DHCP.

The router is handing out itself as DNS server, but once the WIFI XP
laptops come on *something* gets stuffed and only they get responses
from that point on. Anyone else gets the "Cannot connect to server"
message. Note it can't just be a wirless thing as mine did not cause
it. It would have been interesting to try the laptops wired, but it
was now working and we had run out of time. I could not find the
setting in the router to specify DNS servers - assuming there is one
of course. It is possible that that setting is only available via the
telnet interface - Zyxel are funny that way, They offer web and telnet
but you can do *much* more tweaking with the latter.

Lets hope it stays fixed. :-)

--
Regards
Dave Saville

NB Remove nospam. for good email address

"Dave Saville" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:fV45K0OBJxbE-pn2-uDCgZpTv5IDf@localhost...
> Went back last night with my OS/2 laptop ie not Windows.
>
> The PC was in a working state. Plugged my laptop in, wired, and both
> could browse the net. The only odd thing at this stage was that
> nslookup would not work on my box due to being unable to parse
> /etc/resolv2 - looking at the file it was obvious that the router was
> not passing a domain name. Fixed that in the router.
>
> Then I switched the laptop to wireless - NO change. Both PC and laptop
> could still browse. Note I kept using new pages to avoid cache
> problems. At this stage I realised that the first time I had tried,
> last Sunday, I was misled by using win boxes so my conclusion about
> ping was erroneous. They seem to be set not to respond to pings which
> is why the LAN would not ping and the only WAN address I could
> remember also is not responding :-(
>
> So as the PC was happy with my laptop wireless we fired up one of the
> WIFI win laptops. The PC stopped browsing. After a bit of faffing
> about I find that it is happy with IP's - it was DNS that was screwed.
>
> I changed the adaptor to use a public DNS server and lo it
> immediatelystarted to browse once more. Somehow I managed to find that
> DNS server using my laptop which was still kind of working - but then
> Firefox caches all sorts of info. The PC was using IE of course.
>
> We then fired up the second WIFI laptop and things continued to work.
> Just to be sure we shut everything down and restarted all four and the
> router - The PC and the two laptops worked fine, but now *my* laptop
> could not browse. I changed /etc/resolv2 to the same server as I had
> set on the PC and mine burst into life, it had of course been given
> the router address via DHCP.
>
> The router is handing out itself as DNS server, but once the WIFI XP
> laptops come on *something* gets stuffed and only they get responses
> from that point on. Anyone else gets the "Cannot connect to server"
> message. Note it can't just be a wirless thing as mine did not cause
> it. It would have been interesting to try the laptops wired, but it
> was now working and we had run out of time. I could not find the
> setting in the router to specify DNS servers - assuming there is one
> of course. It is possible that that setting is only available via the
> telnet interface - Zyxel are funny that way, They offer web and telnet
> but you can do *much* more tweaking with the latter.
>
> Lets hope it stays fixed. :-)

The conventional mechanism is for the router to specify itself as the DNS
for all the clients, then it passes the requests to the DNS specified by the
ISP. In principle the router can learn a new DNS address from the ISP, if
theirs changes. Many consumer-level ISPs cannot reliably service DNS
requests.

Have you tried a different router?

Can you browse websites by IP address rather than name? If so this would
confirm your DNS problem.

What is the ISP?

--
Graham J

On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:02:40 UTC, "Graham J" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

> The conventional mechanism is for the router to specify itself as the DNS
> for all the clients, then it passes the requests to the DNS specified by the
> ISP. In principle the router can learn a new DNS address from the ISP, if
> theirs changes. Many consumer-level ISPs cannot reliably service DNS
> requests.
>

Don't I know it :-(

> Have you tried a different router?
>

Do not have one.

> Can you browse websites by IP address rather than name? If so this would
> confirm your DNS problem.

Yes. IPs work fine from all boxes. But does not explain why the WIFI
laptops continue to resolve correctly whilst the wired PC gets zilch.

>
> What is the ISP?
>

Virgin :-(

--
Regards
Dave Saville

NB Remove nospam. for good email address

"Dave Saville" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:fV45K0OBJxbE-pn2-JsH5TUWGZpPQ@localhost...
> On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:02:40 UTC, "Graham J" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
>> The conventional mechanism is for the router to specify itself as the DNS
>> for all the clients, then it passes the requests to the DNS specified by
>> the
>> ISP. In principle the router can learn a new DNS address from the ISP,
>> if
>> theirs changes. Many consumer-level ISPs cannot reliably service DNS
>> requests.
>>
>
> Don't I know it :-(
>
>> Have you tried a different router?
>>
>
> Do not have one.
>
>> Can you browse websites by IP address rather than name? If so this would
>> confirm your DNS problem.
>
> Yes. IPs work fine from all boxes. But does not explain why the WIFI
> laptops continue to resolve correctly whilst the wired PC gets zilch.
>
>>
>> What is the ISP?


If you change you router and ISP for professional versions I'm sure all your
problems will go away .

-- Graham J