WinXP vs. WUSB11 Linksys. Momentary signal loss every minute.

[Paradox]

Hi, I've seen a couple threads similar to this, but nothing quite the
same so I figured I'd give it a go. Here's my set up:
Computer1: Windows 98, connected to a Linksys BEFW11S4 version 2 with
Cat5.
Computer2: Windows XP Pro, connected to a WUSB11 version 2.6.
I'm mostly using the defaults on the Router. The only things I've
changed are that I turned the RTS down to 1500 the other day and I've
got 64-bit WEP security on and of course changed the password on the
Router. I also had to switch the wireless connection Rate to 1Mbps to
get a stable connection to the router.
In the router under the status tab it says: Firmware Version: 1.42.7,
Apr 03
2002.
But in the Advanced/Wireless tab it says: Firmware Version: 1.1.2
All this hardware is about a month old.

Symptoms: When playing an internet game, everything freezes up for a
second or two then updates extremely fast (lag).
When streaming, same.
When preloading a flash movie, the loading catches for a second or so,
then resumes.
When pinging the router (this is where it gets interesting) about 1 in
60 pings is extremely high. Over 3000MS usually. This gives me an
average ping, TO THE ROUTER, of something between 50-60MS (ow).

Additional information: I started looking at the 'Networking' tab in
windows XP Task Manager while the Pings were running. Sure enough,
every big ping is coupled with a corresponding VALLEY in the graph.
Not a spike. Right before the ping spikes at 3000, there isn't ANY
Network traffic. Heres some screenshots of the process (items in red
were added later):

[url]http://members.lycos.co.uk/xpheyel/images/spikes/spike01.png[/url]
[url]http://members.lycos.co.uk/xpheyel/images/spikes/spike02.png[/url]
[url]http://members.lycos.co.uk/xpheyel/images/spikes/spike03.png[/url]
And thats just pinging the router. As you can see, its generally
normal. Also those spikes in between have no effect on the ping times
(except for that short one right at the beggining which gave me the
12MS ping in the first pic). Heres a shot of what it looks like when
I'm playing an online game, again I wrote in where I experienced
significant lag.
[url]http://members.lycos.co.uk/xpheyel/images/spikes/runescape.png[/url]

This is very regular too, as can be seen from the images. Almost
exactly every minute.

So, from here, it looks like something is reseting or losing the
connection every minute. Either I've got my network misconfigured or
it has something to do with windows? One odd thing in all this was
that msmsgs.exe was suddenly nabbing about 80% of the system resources
almost as regularly. So I found a toutorial and uninstalled the little
beastie. But it didn't make any difference in odd ping spike.

Computer1, by the way, has absolutely no problems, so I don't think it
could be a confliction with the Modem (one of Linksys's ideas).

Can anyone help? I'd just as soon avoid having to change OSes because
of this.
Heh, moral support would be appreciated if theres no obvivous
technical solution...

[Barb Bowman [MVP-Windows]]

Linksys is up to version 4 on this particular wireless router. And for V2,
the most recent firmware is a 1.45 version from April of this year. I'd
start by returning everything to defaults, then upgrading the router
firmware and go from there.

Paradox wrote:

> Hi, I've seen a couple threads similar to this, but nothing quite the
> same so I figured I'd give it a go. Here's my set up:
> Computer1: Windows 98, connected to a Linksys BEFW11S4 version 2 with
> Cat5.
> Computer2: Windows XP Pro, connected to a WUSB11 version 2.6.
> I'm mostly using the defaults on the Router. The only things I've
> changed are that I turned the RTS down to 1500 the other day and I've
> got 64-bit WEP security on and of course changed the password on the
> Router. I also had to switch the wireless connection Rate to 1Mbps to
> get a stable connection to the router.
> In the router under the status tab it says: Firmware Version: 1.42.7,
> Apr 03
> 2002.
> But in the Advanced/Wireless tab it says: Firmware Version: 1.1.2
> All this hardware is about a month old.
>
> Symptoms: When playing an internet game, everything freezes up for a
> second or two then updates extremely fast (lag).
> When streaming, same.
> When preloading a flash movie, the loading catches for a second or so,
> then resumes.
> When pinging the router (this is where it gets interesting) about 1 in
> 60 pings is extremely high. Over 3000MS usually. This gives me an
> average ping, TO THE ROUTER, of something between 50-60MS (ow).
>
> Additional information: I started looking at the 'Networking' tab in
> windows XP Task Manager while the Pings were running. Sure enough,
> every big ping is coupled with a corresponding VALLEY in the graph.
> Not a spike. Right before the ping spikes at 3000, there isn't ANY
> Network traffic. Heres some screenshots of the process (items in red
> were added later):
>
> [url]http://members.lycos.co.uk/xpheyel/images/spikes/spike01.png[/url]
> [url]http://members.lycos.co.uk/xpheyel/images/spikes/spike02.png[/url]
> [url]http://members.lycos.co.uk/xpheyel/images/spikes/spike03.png[/url]
> And thats just pinging the router. As you can see, its generally
> normal. Also those spikes in between have no effect on the ping times
> (except for that short one right at the beggining which gave me the
> 12MS ping in the first pic). Heres a shot of what it looks like when
> I'm playing an online game, again I wrote in where I experienced
> significant lag.
> [url]http://members.lycos.co.uk/xpheyel/images/spikes/runescape.png[/url]
>
> This is very regular too, as can be seen from the images. Almost
> exactly every minute.
>
> So, from here, it looks like something is reseting or losing the
> connection every minute. Either I've got my network misconfigured or
> it has something to do with windows? One odd thing in all this was
> that msmsgs.exe was suddenly nabbing about 80% of the system resources
> almost as regularly. So I found a toutorial and uninstalled the little
> beastie. But it didn't make any difference in odd ping spike.
>
> Computer1, by the way, has absolutely no problems, so I don't think it
> could be a confliction with the Modem (one of Linksys's ideas).
>
> Can anyone help? I'd just as soon avoid having to change OSes because
> of this.
> Heh, moral support would be appreciated if theres no obvivous
> technical solution...

--
Barb Bowman
Expert Zone Columnist
[url]http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone[/url]
MS-MVP (Windows)