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SP2 shutsdown BEFW11S4 Router

My current system consists of the following. I have a BEFW11S4 v.4 router hooked to a digital cable modem(Comcast). I have a desktop with a Linksys B card. A laptop with a Linksys B card in it. A desktop with a Linksys G card in it. There is also another desktop that my daughter has at school right now that has a D-Link B card in it. All the machines are running XP.

I have upgraded the router firmware to the latest version several months back. The router was working perfectly since the upgrade.

After six months of use with no problems I installed XP Service Pack 2 on my daughter's computer and immediately starting to experience problems with the router losing connection to the internet. After running for a short time the router would not allow any of the machines to access the internet and the network. I would have to power down and re-power the router and it would work for a short period of time. I would not have to reboot any of the machines or the modem. I thought I had a defective router.

Shortly after the problems started my daughter left for school and her machine was out of the system. Immediately the router started working correctly again. I have since purchased another desktop and installed a Linksys G card in it. The system was working perfectly until I updated this machine with Service Pack 2. Soon after the upgrade I started having problems with the router losing its connection to the internet and the network. If I shut down the machine with SP2 on it and cycle the router power the connection problem stops. I have removed SP2 from this machine

4 days ago and all connections problems have ceased. I have not upgraded the remaining machines to SP2 yet.

Has anyone else experienced the same problem with SP2 that is affecting the router? I have not changed any of the setting in the router during all of this. The problem is only there when a machine with SP2 on it is accessing the router.

Any help or input would be greatly appreciated.

John Shimkus

Reply to
Eagle Eye
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Good description of the problem.

Theory #1

Are you sure you're losing your connection to the internet or just to the router? XP SP2 includes a firewall that tends to get in the way. I suggest you temporarily disable the firewall and see if it works. If it does, then deal with the firewall configuration for your LAN.

An easy way to tell if you're losing local connectivity instead of internet connectivity is to simply try connecting to the router after it goes comatose: http://192.168.1.1 If you get the web based configuration pages, you have local connectivity and there is probably nothing wrong with the router. If not, either the router has freaked out, or you have a Windoze Firewall issue to configure.

If you can connect to the router web pages, but not to the internet, check the router "Status -> Router" pages for proper IP addresses and connection status.

Weird Theory #2

I had almost exactly the same problem this week on my home system. I also have a BEFW11s4 v4 firmware 1.50.14, but am running W2K. I noticed some odd traffic after a reboot coming from my W2K. So, I fired up Ethereal and did some sniffing. What I found was that somehow, RIP2 had been enabled on both the router and W2K. Enabling it in the router was the result of my tinkering. Enabling it in W2K was the result of installing "Miscellaneous TCPIP services". What RIP2 does is advertise via broadcasts it's idea of the proper route(s) to the internet to all connected devices. This can send the default route in the router or computah to some bogus address. In my case, the W2K box was initially advertising 169.254.xxx.xxx until it received a DHCP assigned IP address. The router would pickup this address and hand it back to the W2K box as the official route even after the DHCP had assigned a proper default route. The router table at: route print looked awful with a 169.254.xxx.xxx address set as the default route.

The solution was simple. Disarm RIP on both ends. For the BEFW11s4 v4 router, it's in: Setup -> Advanced Routing Disable both sending and "type" of RIP. That's also the default.

If you have an XP or W2K box, go to: Control Panel -> Administative Tools -> Services and find the line with "Router Information Protocol (RIP)" and select "stop" followed by "disable".

Drivel:

The BEFW11S4 v4 may also have other problems. Whenever I use the DOS nmap utility to fast scan it for accessible ports, I can make the router reboot or hang. Just to be fair, I can also make my Alcatel Speed Touch Home DSL modem reboot when I pound on it with nmap. I haven't investigated why. My Efficient 5260 DSL modem doesn't do that.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Thanks for the place to start Jeff. I'm going to try and re-install SP2 and see what happens this weekend.

Reply to
Eagle Eye

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