computer freezes while connected
mistletoad
I was not able to find a group the name of which would appear
most appropriate to my problem, but perhaps someone here will be
kind enough to help or at least explain what is happening.
I have been on the net for about 8 years with Win95B (with some
minor net-related upgrades) and a 33.6 modem and BION everything
works JUST fine. The system minus internet works fine as well, I
see the BSOD MAYBE twice a year, etc. So the system is NOT the
problem. At least I REALLY don't think so. I spent MANY hours
tweaking it and eliminating stupid Windows problems and since
than it has been totally problem-free. Really.
I am however experiencing an intermittent problem which I
suspect has something to do with some people's relatively new
hobby of crashing networks and providers with DOS attacks and
malformed packets etc (I am not that good with this terminology,
I know how to make my computer live happily but I don't know
much about networking and the net, so excuse my ignorance).
I am running an excellent firewall, Black Ice, an old version
(the new versions won't run on 95B) and have been for about 5
years I think. It has stopped EVERY attempt at intrusion and
only ONCE in 5 years I received a red alert, and even that WAS
stopped. I have tried other firewalls an they do not appear to
offer ANY advantages, and FWIW, ZoneAlarm crashed my computer
every time and, it being free, I got no help from them at all,
and stuck to Black Ice. I regularly check my machine and always
scan everything for viruses etc etc. So I do not believe any of
those things can even indirectly be causing the problem.
Anyway (sorry this is taking a while to explain), the problem
happens VERY intermittently. Long-term-speaking, i.e. it won't
happen for weeks or months and then happens several times a
week, and this time it has been happening every 20 minutes to
every 2 hours for well over a week. It usually doesn't last this
long nor is so persistent, but this time it is, so I am writing
if nothing else to find out what the heck it is.
What happens is, when I am on the internet, and everything is
working just fine, my computer will simply freeze and I have to
reboot. I am used to leaving it running all night dl'g stuff and
now when I check it in the morning I often find it froze an hour
after I went to sleep. Etc. VERY annoying. The file I was dl'g
is size 0, although I have recovered some of them just with
scandisk and they (not all but most) seem to end with about 30
lines of jumble which sometimes corresponds to my Usenet group
list, sometimes appears to be a list of servers from some remote
part of the world in alphabetical order, and sometimes something
totaly unrecognizable. I will hapily provide a couple of samples
if it will help someone to help me with this.
Since DOS attacks and malformed packets and other ways of
crashing big systems have been somewhat in vogue recently, I
suspect it is something of this nature that is causing the
problem. Something that Black Ice will not let "enter" my system
nonetheless manages to freeze it. It has never caused any actual
damage except the waste of hours of time when the computer which
is supposed to be dl'g sits there eating up electricity and
doing nothing until I look at it again, which as I said, is
often not until the next day or several hours later when I
return home or whatever.
Am I at all on the right track and is there any way to stop this
from occurring? My ISP provider has millions of customers and
occasionally the line I am connected to simply stops working. I
suspect it's the same thing on their system. I just redial and
get another line, and everything is fine. Except, as I said, for
about a week or two now, it will freeze after 2 or 3 hours, and
sometimes after 15 minutes. A few days ago it made it through
about 10 hours and I thought the sys ops around the world
finally killed the problem, but it was back the same evening.
I am signed up and pre-paid with this ISP for another 11 months
(have been using them for about 5 years now) and while they are
a despicable monopoly, and when I first tried them 8 years ago
the service was totally unacceptable, it is now fine. I don't
know, but I don't THINK it has to do with the ISP. And there is
really no other decent ISP available in the 3rd world country
where I live.
While I often see replies to other people's problems which
mainly consist of some equivalent of "your system is trash, get
a 3GB machine with Linux (or XP) and your problems will be over
" I don't accept that attitude unless conclusively proven with
some facts. As I said, this only happens a few times a year, has
never been THIS persistent, and the system when not connected to
the internet works perfectly, however difficult it may be to
believe for fans of the latest technologies.
I would appreciate any comments or suggestions.
Thank you.
m.
Michael Santovec
from an ISP when using the Dial-up Networking. For reasons unknown, it
affects some people, but not others. Those affected typically encounter
the problem for about 10% of disconnects. Since a modem disconnect can
happen without warning, this could happen without your explicitly doing
a disconnect.
There are 2 possible workarounds, provided that you don't also use your
PC on a LAN (Local Area Network) which uses TCP/IP as the primary LAN
protocol (rather than NETBEUI or IPX/SPX) and you are running LAN based
applications that require NETBIOS support.
Preferred:
1) In Control Panel, Network TCP/IP, Properties, WINS Configuration
- disable WINS Resolution.
If the above doesn't help try:
2) Rename file C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VNBT.386 to something else
(e.g. OLD_VNBT.386)
You should restart Win95 after applying either change to make sure it
takes effect.
Notes:
- Option #1 may cause the file C:\WINDOWS\WINSOCK.DLL to be renamed
C:\WINDOWS\WINSOCK.OLD. This would prevent 16-bit programs from
accessing the Internet (32-bit programs would not be affected as they
use WSOCK32.DLL). If you use 16-bit programs, rename the file back to
its original name to fix the problem.
--
Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm
"mistletoad" <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:Xns9773965712A...@216.196.97.135...
mistletoad
I have done both your suggestions a long time ago as part of the
several-year-long tweak to finally make this rung run like it
should.
Also, unless I am in the period of "freezes", I virtually never
get disconnected. Sometimes their modem just stops responding (2
or 3 times a month), then I just redial. When I DO actually (get
disconnected (as opposed to "frozen"), my auto redialer
reconnects me so the computer obviously hasn't hung.
From a suggestion in another group, I put in a Supra 28.8 to see
if it was the modem. Same thing , except a lot of disconnects
and auto-redials. I guess the Supra modem is just more finicky
or something. Anyway I'm back on the 33.6 USR and after 2 days
of 5-7 freezes a day, I have almost 20 frezze-free hrs. But it
will happen agin, sooner or later.
I hope I did not misunderstand your post. Do you have any other
ideas?
Thansk again for writing.
"Michael Santovec" <michael_...@prodigy.net> wrote in
news:ea3Id4Z...@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl:
mistletoad
Minor correction. I DO have the vnbt.386 file but is a newer one
from 98, ver. 4.10.1658. Should I take it out? Isn't it required
to connect etc? And the problem being SO intermittent, and in
fact having started only a couple of years, ago while I have had
that file for MUCH longer than that, could that still be the
problem?
Sorry about not checking before the first reply. The other
things ARE as I stated before.
Thanks.
<SNIP>
Michael Santovec
used in a LAN situation as outlined in my original post. Renaming it
effectively disables it but allowing you to rename it back if you should
ever need it again.
That you were getting a lot of disconnects with the other modem points
to phone line problems or problems at your ISP's modems.
The hang problem related to the vnbt.386 file occurs when the modem
disconnects so with your original modem, the line may have been
disconnecting and then that triggers the hang which prevents you from
noticing the modem disconnect.
--
Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm
"mistletoad" <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:Xns97789781F45...@216.196.97.135...
mistletoad
> The vnbt.386 isn't necessary in an dial-up ISP situation.
> It's only used in a LAN situation as outlined in my
> original post. Renaming it effectively disables it but
> allowing you to rename it back if you should ever need it
> again.
>
> That you were getting a lot of disconnects with the other
> modem points to phone line problems or problems at your
> ISP's modems.
>
> The hang problem related to the vnbt.386 file occurs when
> the modem disconnects so with your original modem, the line
> may have been disconnecting and then that triggers the hang
> which prevents you from noticing the modem disconnect.
>
Hello again and thank you for writing.
I have renamed the vnbt386 file - while I was connected, yet -
so I would guess it wasn't loaded, Still, AFAIK stuff doesn't
have to be loaded to screw things up. So thanks for the more
info and we'll see what happens.
While I am FAR from defending my fascist telephone monopoly ISP,
logic would dictate that since those disconnects ONLY happened
with the Supra, The USR can handle those problems. In any case,
talking to them is pointless.
Hopefully the file I renamed will do the trick. Sure would be
nice. Will let you know.
Thanks again!
Michael Santovec
along better than others.
Some of this is due to the modems default settings. You can tweak a
modem's settings which may improve or worsen the situation.
For some notes on this, see the following:
56K Modems
http://modemsite.com/56k/index.asp
56K.COM - V.90, K56flex, and x2 56K Modem Page
http://www.56k.com/
--
Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm
"mistletoad" <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:Xns977B186E5F1...@216.196.97.135...
mistletoad
> Some modems can handle line noise better than others and
> some modems get along better than others.
>
> Some of this is due to the modems default settings. You
> can tweak a modem's settings which may improve or worsen
> the situation.
Thanks for replying.
My modem is 33.6 (BION).
Anyway, I once ran about 3 hours (!) of tests with some program
called Modem Dr. or something, and it told me it was operating
at 99.5% capacity. Good enough for me.
Anyway, yesterday I froze so many times I just gave up. Now I
have been connected for about 6 hours. Could be worse. Anyway,
looks like I have to live with it.
Thanks for your help.
mistletoad
never does - one often doesn't even THINK of it. Why IS that?
To make a long story short, someone in another forum suggested
shutting off BlackIce. I was afraid to be without a firewall, so
I installed the free Agnitum Outpost. (I tried the Outpost 30
day trial a few years ago but it would not run on 95B. The free
version does. I don't know why.)
Anyway, I had about a day without a freeze, so I thought I'd go
back to BlackIce and see what would happen. I froze within 6
hrs. I went back to Outpost and it has been about 5 days without
a freeze so I am becoming cautiously optimistic. BTW, BOTH
BlackIce and Outpost free passed ALL pcflank tests 100%. (But
who am I to try to understand these things.)
Thanks for your help, Michael.
Michael Santovec
--
Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm
"mistletoad" <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:Xns97851081B8...@216.196.97.135...