Router Locks Up When One Pc Starts Up

[opalhort]

We have a TRUE ADSL with no problems (speed or otherwise).

3 PCs are on LAN cable, one on WiFi.

2 PCs (cable) and 1 PC (WiFi): WIN XP PRO SP3 (legit)

1 PC (cable) Vista ultimate (legit) (my son's PC)

Modem/Router: Billion BIPAC 5102G

From time to time (not every time!) when my son starts up his Vista PC the router locks up. No PC can get into it not even via 192.168.1.1. Only a router hardware reset solves the problem.

His PC is clean according to all security programs. Have all needed anti virus/malware protection, updated daily and run weekly, apart from auto run of some of them on a daily basis. Firewall is the regular VISTA version.

Any idea where to look for the culprit?

opalhort

[webfact]

maybe worth a try -

Make sure your router is set to DHCP on and your computers are set to

aquire IP automaticly in the TCP/IP network settings.

[lopburi3]

I would check port first - plug into a different port and if still happens switch lan cable - and if still happens it is likely computer and the hard part starts - but rule out the port/cable first.

Edited August 25, 2009 by lopburi3

[opalhort]

Thanks for your replies.

All PCs are set to auto-detect IP address but the router appears to keep the IPs unless the entire system PCs and router is shut down.

There was an old port forwarding (port 8888) to my son's PC which I have now deleted since it is no longer needed.

Will also change his LAN cable to a different socket on the router.

Since this lock-up is not something that happens every time he starts his PC it'll probably take a couple of days to see if these measures solved the problem.

Thanks again for your ideas.

opalhort

[welo]

Do you have UPNP enabled on the router? Some routers have crappy implementations and it is better to turn the UPnP support off. Worth a try...

welo

[opalhort]

Do you have UPNP enabled on the router?

welo

UPnP is NOT enabled!

opalhort

[niller74]

This is a just a wild thought.

I just recently did some similar trouble shooting on a network that showed some of the same symptoms, this was caused by a user that unknowingly had copied the MAC address from the router to his workstation. Which of course caused a conflict.

Unfortunately some network interfaces allow this change relatively easy and it is not the first thing to check on the checklist for a network engineer

[welo]

Since there is obviously some guess work involved now, I'll open another round

• Are you absolutely sure that the router locks up when your son's computer starts and did not already freeze before? I guess you are, just want to make sure. Of course it would also help to know the exact point when the router freezes (during system start (POST), OS start, or later after login when auto-start programs fire up), but this might be hard to find out. Actually sometimes finding a way to reproduce the problem will bring you a lot closer to finding the solution. But in some cases this is just really hard...
  
• One Computer-Router interaction during startup is to receive a DHCP lease from the router. Try disabling DHCP on the router and assign fixed IPs to each computer, maybe something wrong there.
  
• I guess you already checked for a firmware upgrade to your router
  
• What software is running on computer startup. Is there a bittorrent software running? This might open many connections on startup, sometimes more than some routers can handle. However, the lockups would probably occur not only at startup but also after hours running the bittorrent client. What program did the port-forward use? But again, this brings up the question whether you can state the time when the router freezes more precisely.
  
• I like the hint to change the ethernet port on the router. You could even carry that further: change the cable, change the network card in your computer (resp. add one since you probably have an onboard NIC).
  

welo

[opalhort]

Yes, it is a guessing game.

Facts:

Son's PC runs full Vista start-up --. no problem

He starts his FireFox or IE7 --> no problem

He goes to ANY website --> problem, but only occasionally and not always with same website!

He has no torrent start-ups but I guess he should have a look at his msconfig start-up to see what he can eliminate. The problem could be there.

Thanks for all your suggestions

opalhort

[welo]

He goes to ANY website --> problem, but only occasionally and not always with same website!

He has no torrent start-ups but I guess he should have a look at his msconfig start-up to see what he can eliminate. The problem could be there.

Well, that is interesting! However, the question is not only when the problem becomes visible to you/your son, but when the router actually locks up. Could you ever pin down the exact point when the router locked up? Meaning, did somebody ever use another PC and the internet and then your son turned on the computer and the router froze?

I know I am picky, but it will help finding a solution. If you keep restarting your son's computer several times, can you 'make' the router freeze sooner or later? Like I said before, reproducing the problem is the first step to its solution...

I guess another question is also how much the lockup actually annoys you. From what we see now it will take quite some observation work and trial and error to find a solution

welo

[opalhort]

We are working on it.

Today same thing happened after start-up complete. Did a check on all start-up items in msconfig and disabled MANY!

Now the only (in my opinion) non-essential start-up item is the winmessenger (he NEEDS it!).

After edit of msconfig had to restart. No problem. But 10 minutes later same lock-up while AVG was doing it's normal update.

For now we have switched off all automatic updates of all the various security programs he has (they can be updated manually as needed for the time being).

Let's wait and see how it works out.

opalhort

[welo]

AVG Update will use HTTP or FTP requests to download the virus definition updates, so it sounds reasonable that the router does not only crash when using the web browser but with any program opening a http connection. Just tells us that the problem is not directly related to the web browser (which I ruled out before anyway since you experience the same kind of problems no matter whether you use Firefox or IE).

During the session when AVG crashed the router, did you have any program access the internet before that?

I further conclude now that the problem is not triggered by anything specific during the OS startup such as obtaining a IP address via DHCP.

Does the Windows Messenger automatically sign-in on startup? When you noticed the router crash, did Windows Messenger already sign in successfully?

And still my question, how sure are you that only your son's computer crashes the router. Maybe this is just the computer that is used most often? If the crash happens with other computers too, we have to target the router to solve the issue. If it really only happens with the Vista PC, we should keep targeting the PC. However, the router deserves some attention in either situation, since it just shouldn't crash

I assume you already checked the cable and the port as lopburi pointed out.

You could also check whether there is an updated driver for your network card.

With crashing routers it is always a good point to check for a firmware upgrade. But be careful, it seems that your model will lose all the settings and you will have to re-enter also some of the more technical values (VPI/VPC), so this is something for experienced users only. Nevertheless this would be one of my first steps now!

And always remember that after a firmware upgrade, and after you reboot the router, you ALSO need to do a factory default - which reboots again - then setup router again from scratch - do not load a saved config!!

source: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-repli...cfm/352875.html

And a general thing with computer hardware in Thailand, check that your router does not run (extremely) hot, if it is packed in some shelf give it some air to breath...

welo

[welo]

And one more thing

I heard some people talk not too nice about AVG recently. I don't want to start another antivirus software discussion here, however, it is always a good idea to check with a second antivirus software if you experience problems and suspect a virus might be involved. No antivirus software has a 100% detection rate!

You can go with a bootable Rescue CD or any online scan (NOD32, Kaspersky, and others). I would not recommend to do a program install of another antivirus software, this will most probably cause conflicts with AVG!!

The reason why I would not rule out a virus in your case is, that a trojan might try to hide its attempt to connect to the internet by waiting for another program to open a connection and then get active. This is just speculation and I would not get too paranoid about it, but it's also worth a try. Just have the scan start before you go to bed, it might take a couple of hours..

welo

[opalhort]

Thanks welo for all your suggestions.

1. cable no problem. it goes in PVC pipes (about 20m) within walls and ceiling. But used a temporary cable through windows and had same result.

2. change of socket at router --> same problem

3. Router heat: no problem. it is standing in the open and has most of the time a fan blowing over it and feels just warm to the touch.

4. Win messenger does start up but does not sign in. needs manual click to sign in.

Today we tried the following:

had all other PCs off when he started up and all was OK, he did a manual update of AVG and also no problem, powered up all other PCs and still no problem.

Still running OK right now.

It could very well be one of my PCs that lock the router once my son's PC tries to connect to my PCs. (we are completely open within the LAN and all drives on all PCs have full access settings)

It is not a very big issue since we can always re-start the router if it locks up; it is just annoying.

opalhort

[opalhort]

Update:

It is now confirmed (from our observation) that the bad guy is one of my PCs (a particular one).

Whenever this PC is running any traffic across the LAN (which also means the net) while my son boots his PC we have this router lock-up.

If this PC is off or I disable the LAN on this PC when he starts his boot-up - no problem.

This PC has a history of intermittent LAN problems. For example I have no problem sending a large file to any other PC but when I load a large file (usually over 1GB) from another PC using this PC it loses the LAN connection, though there is no problem using another PC to send the file to this PC.

In plain language: I still haven't got a clue.

For now we have our work-around which is quite easy.

opalhort

[lopburi3]

LAN cards do not get along well with close lightning strikes - I would use a new card as not that expensive to try.

[opalhort]

The LAN is not a card, it's on the MB and I don't think lightening is an issue here. We are well protected.

opalhort

[welo]

The LAN is not a card, it's on the MB and I don't think lightening is an issue here. We are well protected.

opalhort

Maybe a driver issue? Be sure you check if there is a newer version of the driver available. Try to find out the onboard chip used (often a Realtek or Intel onboard chip), sometimes you will find a driver update this way if the motherboard manufacturer does not list one on its site.

And as lopburi pointed out, you could always get a new NIC (if it's not a laptop) and just disable the old one. This would also be great for diagnosis (maybe it turns out that the problem still perseveres with the new card ). A 100MBit PCI Card is just around 200 Baht.

welo