Archive for category Networking
What a Difference a New Chipset Makes
Posted by eric in Hardware, Networking, Reviews on January 17, 2010
My system for the last few years has been a Dell Dimension 9200. I’ve done a few upgrades to it that were non-Dell standard but for the most part it has been completely stable and without issue. That was until recently… when I installed a new nVidia GTX 295 video card. I had thought outside of the SLI on a single card that I wouldn’t experience any issues. My mistake.
Soon after installing the GTX 295 I started experiencing strange issues. 3D Performance was in the pits, video playback had issues and even sound while playing a game was choppy and stuttered. I was at a loss for what could have been happening because I had the latest drivers from nVidia and did a fresh install of Windows 7 x64 Enterprise Edition.
Then I remembered last time I had the symptom of stuttering sound…
Review: Intel SS4200-E NAS
Posted by eric in Hardware, Networking, Opinion, Reviews on September 12, 2009
Well, it finally happened. The D-Link DNS-323 NAS that I’ve been using for the past two years with a 750GB RAID1 finally filled up 
The DNS-323 has been a great NAS! I had my doubts at first with a D-Link product, since in the past their networking products that I’ve used haven’t been quality. So my issue was, how do I upgrade from a RAID1 on a two-drive NAS to a new fault tolerant system that has at LEAST 1.5TB of storage. I mean, if you’re going to upgrade you need to make it count, so doubling the capacity of my current NAS was the primary goal.
I did some research and with NewEgg running a sale on the hardware, I settled on the Intel SS4200-E NAS. On the spec sheet, this NAS met my requirements because it supported up to four drives, RAID5 and RAID10! Technical reviews I found of the device put it at the top of the chart when it comes to RAID5 performance.
Does your Juniper VPN client keep disconnecting after you connect?
Posted by eric in General Software, Hardware, Internet, Networking on April 18, 2008
I had this issue a while back while working from home using my company laptop. Our company utilizes the Juniper VPN client software and up until recently it had been working just fine! One day while working remote my VPN connection kept closing with the error:
“The Network Connect session terminated. Do you want to reconnect? (nc.windows.app.23711).”
I did some Googling and I came across this support manual from Juniper which discusses the error codes/messages returned by the VPN client software and what could be causing the issue. Error code 23711 Juniper describes the problem as:
“The Network Connect client disconnected from the secure gateway because the
client’s routing table was altered.”
I thought to myself, “What the hell could be changing my routing table?” At first I suspected it might have been a VPN tunneling issue with my Apple Airport Extreme but that known issue has been fixed since early 2007. The issue obviously was being caused by something on my company laptop.
I tried different media (wired vs. wireless) and also updated and rolled back different network drivers to no avail. Another long Google search put me upon this blog entry at kevinluck.com where he states:
After a bit of googling I found out that there were complaints about the early betas of CS3 and the Bonjour service that they installed affecting networking. And this is what was causing my problem. If you press Ctrl-Alt-Del and look at your processes then you will find a “mDNSResponder.exe” service running after installing Flash CS3. Ending this process allows you to connect through Network Connect.
Presto! Stopping that Process and eventually uninstalling the Bonjour application from my computer fixed my VPN disconnection problem! A big THANK YOU to kevinluck.com for being a great resource and I hope that this blog entry helps others trouble shoot the same issue I had with our Juniper VPN client!
Lord knows I was ready to pull my hair out 
Wireless Issues when making a VoIP call using a Linksys PAP2 and an Apple Airport Extreme Router
Posted by eric in Hardware, Internet, Networking on December 15, 2007
Hey Everyone!
Thought I’d post this little technical issue to my blog in hopes that someone else in the world has had the same issue I’m having right now and perhaps share their solution 
I have a Linksys PAP2 VoIP adapter (Firmware version 1.00.22) plugged into an Ethernet port on my Airport Extreme (Gig-E). I also have another Airport Extreme setup as a repeater in my home theater.
When I use my VoIP phone, my wireless clients internet connectivity slow to a crawl. While doing a ping to my gateway (10.0.1.1) I can see my response times become pretty erratic ranging form 50ms to 1600ms, with about 15% of the requests timeout.
I setup the PAP2 VoIP device with a static IP (10.0.1.5) and set it as the default host. My theory at the time was that since it was being NAT’d, the inbound UDP traffic was being transmitted across and flooding my wireless network.
This doesn’t seem to have fixed the problem. I experience this wireless slowdown on both my PC (Dell Precision laptop) and my Mac (PowerBook, MacBook) wireless clients.
Both my AirPort Extreme base stations are running the latest version of the firmware (7.2.1, I believe) and this issue does not happen to wired clients on my primary base station (where the PAP2 is plugged in).
Has anyone else experienced this problem or have any idea what could be happening? I’m hoping I’ll be able to locate a solution somewhere, but so far I haven’t found any resources online that would help.
Thanks!
Trouble with your WRT54G after flashing to a new firmware?
Posted by eric in Hardware, Networking on May 13, 2007
Are you having strange issues with your Linksys WRT54G/WRT54GL/WRT54GS router after flashing it with a newer firmware? You may need to manually clear the nvram to remove previous settings/files from the old firmware.
I recently flashed my Linksys WRT54G v2 from DD-WRT v23 SP2 to DD-WRT v23 SP3 Beta (05/02). Before flashing to the newer version of the firmware, I was sure to ‘Reset to Factory Defaults’ as well as hold the rear button on the router for 30 seconds, as these were supposed to clear any previous settings and files.
A couple days after flashing the firmware, my wireless connectivity started acting ‘funny’. It would simply drop the wireless connectivity, appearing off line to the client nodes. This issue persisted even after I reverted back to the previous version of DD-WRT that I was running before the upgrade.
After some research I was able to identify my issue. It seems that using the GUI ‘Reset to Factory Default’ as well as the back button on the router is not enough to clear all the settings. What I had to do was actually telnet into the router (which DD-WRT enabled me to do) and manually erase the NVRAM using the following command:
erase nvram; reboot
After that command is executed, your router will reboot and be set back to default settings as the nvram has been completely cleared.
Below is a screen shot of this:
This solved my issue and it might solve yours as well!
Cheers!
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the Networking category.
Get Connected
