🚀 go-pugleaf

Matt <mwalcoff@onecom.com> writes:

>From: Matt <mwalcoff@onecom.com>
>Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems.cable,cableinet.cable_modems
>Subject: Odd problem with @Home service
>Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 03:05:27 GMT
>
>I am having trouble with my new cable modem service. Whenever I request
>a Web page, it loads up only the first 10 KB or so -- the background or
>the very top of the page, if anything -- then stalls. However, I have
>been able to use e-mail without problems and am doing OK with Usenet,
>although it stalled after loading 700 or so message headers. I tried
>uninstalling Netscape and putting on the version of Internet Explorer
>provided with the modem, but that did not help.
>
>The problem may have something to do with the age of my computer -- it's
>an old P150 with 16MB of RAM. On the other hand, in the past I ran ISDN
>on this computer with no problems, and I read one post from someone who
>says he uses a 33Mhz 486.

All the stuff about more memory, larger swap file, etc. are good things 
to do but probably won't fix this problem.

Pardon my analogy to wolfing down food, but it might help explain what's 
likely going on.

It looks like some kind of overflow problem where your computer can take 
medium size mouthfuls of data just fine (mail, news, part of a web page) 
but chokes once its mouth is full and your cable modem keeps trying to 
push more in faster than your computer can chew and swallow.  (Yucch!)

Usually this is handled by flow control at the ethernet level (between 
your PC's Network Interface Card and the Cable Modem.)  I think that 
folks who have been advising you about your ethernet settings are on 
the right track.  But the problem may be that your ethernet card is 
defective -- something which does happen occassionally.

It is also possible that your cable modem is defective but that is very, 
very, very unlikely.  Therefore I would try the following things first.

If you have a *.htm file on your local hard disk (use Find to search 
for anything that ends .htm) or you have a CD-ROM with some .htm or 
.html files, try opening them with your browser.  If they load 
successfully, you will have isolated the problem to the parts of 
your computer which deal with its network connection.

Please be sure that you have installed the latest update patches from 
Microsoft which affect "winsock" which is the MS-Windows module which 
interfaces with TCP/IP protocol and handles tasks like flow control, 
etc.  For example, in Windows95, you should be running a version no 
older than:

    Winsock.dll version 4.00.1111 (dated 8/24/96) and later
    Wsock32.dll version 4.00.1111 (dated 8/24/96) and later

Check the Microsoft Knowledgebase for your particular Windows operating 
system to learn if you need an update and how to download the appropriate 
patches from the Microsoft web site.   You can access the Microsoft 
Knowledgebase directly at http://support.microsoft.com/support/a.asp?M=S

Again, assuming you are using Windows95 or Windows98 (or one of its 
siblings) and your winsock dll files are up to date, you might then start 
by shutting off your computer, opening it up, and removing the network 
card.  Then restart and, in the Device Manager, delete the card.  Reboot 
the computer and check Device Manager to make sure the card has been 
deleted.

Turn the machine off, re-install the card, and re-start.  Windows 
should discover the card and be smart enough to suggest an appropriate 
driver.  You may need your original Windows CD-ROM disk if the driver 
is not one that has already been copied onto your hard disk.

This process is going to do two things: 1) it's going to make you 
re-seat the physical card in its slot so that if it was not fully 
seated or is a thin layer of oxidation had formed on any of the 
contacts, this will be fixed; and 2) it will make sure the device 
driver software is appropriate to the card and that the driver 
software on your hard disk has not become corrupted in some way.

If, after doing this, you are experiencing the same problems, you 
should get hold of a new Network Interface Card and repeat the process 
of uninstalling the old card and installing the new card.

Check with your cable provide about what you have to do so that your 
cable modem recognizes the new card.  Some systems just require that 
you power off the cable modem, start the computer with the new card 
in it, and power the cable modem back on so that the cable modem will
discover the unique hardware address that every ethernet card has 
manufactured into it.  Other cable systems require that you notify 
them of the change and provide the with the "Machine Address" or "MAC
Address" of the new card.  (If you don't find it printed on a sticker 
on the card itself, you can use the "winipcfg" utiltiy included with 
MS-Windows and it will display this address.  It is a series of six 
two-digit hexadecimal numbers which will look something like this:
00:A2:EF:15:2B:CD or 00-A2-EF-15-2B-CD or even 00A2EF152BCD.)


Among the machines we have in use on our LAN are several Pentium 
100Mhz boxes with 32Mb of memory.  They work just fine for more of 
less everything on the web except those few web pages which are so 
overloaded with Java applets that machine has trouble loading and 
execting all the code before the users' patience runs out.

We even have two 486DX (pre-Pentium era) machines which are in 
casual use for visitors to use check their email.


Hope this is of some help to you.

Cheers,
The Old Bear