Internet Streaming Lockup

[Bill Bradshaw]

This may be a hardware or software problem. I have an older computer that
locks up (looses internet connection) when streaming music or video from the
internet.

CPU Type Intel Pentium IIIE, 800 MHz (6 x 133)
Motherboard Name Tyan S1854(-A) Trinity 400 (6 PCI, 1 AGP, 3 DIMM)
Motherboard Chipset VIA VT82C694X Apollo Pro133A
System Memory 512 MB (SDRAM)
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce 6600 (256 MB)
Windows XP Pro SP3

The connection is a 3 mega bit per second cable with the following:

From the wall to the provider broadband box - then to a Thompson DCM425 -
then to a Netgear WPNT834 Router - then to a Linksys EG1032 v3 Network
Adapter.

This is all sitting behind the Zonealarm firewall.

I have tried the system with two different ISPs with the same results. I
have tried a Netgear GA311 network card and the current Linksys EG1032
network card with no success.

I have been told it may be a codec problem but I do not know what I should
do to test that theory.

Once the network connection has been lost during the internet streaming
process I only seem to be able to get it back by rebooting the computer.

I have tried Google with no success.

I am hoping the knowledgeable people here can help me.

 

[Paul]

This may be a hardware or software problem. I have an older computer that
locks up (looses internet connection) when streaming music or video from the
internet.

CPU Type Intel Pentium IIIE, 800 MHz (6 x 133)
Motherboard Name Tyan S1854(-A) Trinity 400 (6 PCI, 1 AGP, 3 DIMM)
Motherboard Chipset VIA VT82C694X Apollo Pro133A
System Memory 512 MB (SDRAM)
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce 6600 (256 MB)
Windows XP Pro SP3

The connection is a 3 mega bit per second cable with the following:

From the wall to the provider broadband box - then to a Thompson DCM425 -
then to a Netgear WPNT834 Router - then to a Linksys EG1032 v3 Network
Adapter.

This is all sitting behind the Zonealarm firewall.

I have tried the system with two different ISPs with the same results. I
have tried a Netgear GA311 network card and the current Linksys EG1032
network card with no success.

I have been told it may be a codec problem but I do not know what I should
do to test that theory.

Once the network connection has been lost during the internet streaming
process I only seem to be able to get it back by rebooting the computer.

I have tried Google with no success.

I am hoping the knowledgeable people here can help me.

Are you able to do a long download (FTP or HTTP) without a lockup ?

Is the problem only when video is involved ? Can you listen to
an Internet radio station, one completely devoid of graphics
on the screen, without a lockup ?

Can you play 3D games on the computer, for a good period of
time, without the Geforce 6600 locking up ?

The reason I'm mentioning all these test cases, is to help
you distinguish between a network problem, and a video
card problem.

I suppose it is possible that it is a software problem.
What I would do, is use a Linux LiveCD, and do some of
the same activities while running a different OS. My
favorite is Knoppix, although the "best version" of
Knoppix (most friendly), is only available in DVD
format. That is Knoppix 5.3.1. I find the newest
version 6, while being available in a CD sized version
(<700MB download), is a little austere by comparison.
It doesn't look like your Windows desktop.

The nice thing about a LiveCD, is it doesn't need to
install any software on the hard drive. But it does
help to have lots of memory, for various reasons.
(To be honest with you, to make Knoppix bullet-proof,
there should really be a small swap partition installed
on the hard drive. Even a 1GB partition on the hard drive,
will prevent the OS from having out-of-memory problems.
And they don't give easy instructions on how to do that.
It took me a long while to figure it out.)

Still, using another OS is an effective way of determining
whether the problem is inside the computer, or outside.
For example, I have one computer here with a flaky video
card interface, and it is equally flaky in Windows and
Linux. So I know the problem is hardware.

If it was my computer, I'd probably want to start
Googling about the 694X Northbridge, and see if it
is known to have a bad video (AGP) interface. But
at the same time, continue your testing.

http://groups.google.ca/group/alt.c...read/thread/5e8c3e64ac3585af/713c58329bba12d4

Good luck,
Paul

 

[Bill Bradshaw]

Thanks for responding.

Are you able to do a long download (FTP or HTTP) without a lockup ?

I do not have any problems doing a long download.

Is the problem only when video is involved ? Can you listen to
an Internet radio station, one completely devoid of graphics
on the screen, without a lockup ?

Raima Radio locks up so would that count as devoid of graphics. Screamer
also locks up.

Can you play 3D games on the computer, for a good period of
time, without the Geforce 6600 locking up ?

Yes I can.

 

[Paul]

Thanks for responding.


I do not have any problems doing a long download.


Raima Radio locks up so would that count as devoid of graphics. Screamer
also locks up.


Yes I can.

Well, it's not a threading problem, because your processor is
a single core. So no need to play with affinity or anything.

Can you run Prime95 for up to four hours, without any errors ?
This is a test of computing ability, with the weakness that
it cannot test the memory occupied by the operating system.
Use the "just stress testing" option. The default settings
will likely test most of your free RAM. The program does
some math with a known answer, so the program has the ability
to detect computing mistakes or RAM errors. (In terms of the
number of threads this starts, it should be able to sense you
have a single core, and only start one thread.) You can
use Task Manager to see how much memory it grabbed. Use
the menu item "stop" then "exit" to completely remove it
from executing.

http://majorgeeks.com/Prime95_d4363.html

If a codec is involved, maybe it has been optimized for processors
later than your P3 ? Maybe the author of the codec hasn't tested
it on a P3 ?

Looking back at your symptoms, it is a bit weird that the
network connection gets broken by a streaming application,
yet you can do normal downloads without issue. Is there
a memory leak in one of the streaming radio applications,
such that some free memory is tied up and not returned
to the OS ? When the thing fails, does the radio application
exit ? Does the "commit total" memory in Task Manager return
to "normal". To give an example of an application here, that
doesn't play nice, I can have chunks of memory not returned
to the OS, after using Wireshark. Doing a reboot, always
returns things to normal for me. And usually, the amount
of memory lost, is not critical to system operation, so
it isn't a big deal.

Perhaps you could listen to the radio, with Task Manager
open, and watch whether the memory graph keeps climbing
while the thing is running.

While the programs at Sysinternals.com allow looking at
various aspects of system operation, I don't know if there
is anything there that can tell you whether a networking
stack is healthy.

Have you looked in Event Viewer ? Most of the time, software
problems don't leave obvious error messages, but who knows,
maybe you'll get lucky. I cannot remember the last time
that Event Viewer actually had usable evidence in it.

Paul

 

[Bill Bradshaw]

Well, it's not a threading problem, because your processor is
a single core. So no need to play with affinity or anything.

Can you run Prime95 for up to four hours, without any errors ?
This is a test of computing ability, with the weakness that
it cannot test the memory occupied by the operating system.
Use the "just stress testing" option. The default settings
will likely test most of your free RAM. The program does
some math with a known answer, so the program has the ability
to detect computing mistakes or RAM errors. (In terms of the
number of threads this starts, it should be able to sense you
have a single core, and only start one thread.) You can
use Task Manager to see how much memory it grabbed. Use
the menu item "stop" then "exit" to completely remove it
from executing.

http://majorgeeks.com/Prime95_d4363.html

If a codec is involved, maybe it has been optimized for processors
later than your P3 ? Maybe the author of the codec hasn't tested
it on a P3 ?

Looking back at your symptoms, it is a bit weird that the
network connection gets broken by a streaming application,
yet you can do normal downloads without issue. Is there
a memory leak in one of the streaming radio applications,
such that some free memory is tied up and not returned
to the OS ? When the thing fails, does the radio application
exit ? Does the "commit total" memory in Task Manager return
to "normal". To give an example of an application here, that
doesn't play nice, I can have chunks of memory not returned
to the OS, after using Wireshark. Doing a reboot, always
returns things to normal for me. And usually, the amount
of memory lost, is not critical to system operation, so
it isn't a big deal.

Perhaps you could listen to the radio, with Task Manager
open, and watch whether the memory graph keeps climbing
while the thing is running.

While the programs at Sysinternals.com allow looking at
various aspects of system operation, I don't know if there
is anything there that can tell you whether a networking
stack is healthy.

Have you looked in Event Viewer ? Most of the time, software
problems don't leave obvious error messages, but who knows,
maybe you'll get lucky. I cannot remember the last time
that Event Viewer actually had usable evidence in it.

Paul

Thanks for your help. I think I may have solved the problem by turning off
the Flow Control on the network card. Still need to test some more but so
far so good. Aren't computers fun .

 

[Paul]

Thanks for your help. I think I may have solved the problem by turning off
the Flow Control on the network card. Still need to test some more but so
far so good. Aren't computers fun .

I never would have thought of that

They're fun, when you can beat them at their little games...

Paul