Random connection failure

[nomura]

Hello.
Over the last month or so there has been constant trouble with network connections on my friends computer. The general symptoms are about 5% packet loss when pinging both outside locations and internal addresses. There seems to be no pattern to the failure. To rule out the network and isolate the problem to his computer i connected a different computer to his location on the network and verified that the network worked perfectly. I also booted a Gentoo live cd on his computer (on his location in the network) and the ping results showed zero lost packets over about 450 trials. After a clean install of XP(SP2) the random ping time outs still existed. To further verify this as a xp configuration problem i added a second nic (was origially using the onboard) and the problem still existed.

here are the system specs:
Albatron KX600 Pro
Athlon XP 2200+
Linksys LNE100TX (pci)
3Com 3C910 (integrated)

here is some of the output from a ping:
...
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 1197, Received = 1126, Lost = 71 (5% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

as you can see above 71 were lost out of 1197 some of these were grouped quite close and some spread far apart. If anyone could suggest a course of action to fix this problem please let me know, thanks in advance.

[first post!] -nomura

 

[VirtualLarry]

The first thing that I want to suggest would be the patch cable. The second, is if there is any kind of IRQ-sharing/conflict issue going on. The third, is the possibility that there is some other hardware in the machine causing it to lose IRQs or otherwise interfere with network performance. Possibly if you have an AGP graphics card or RAID disk controller, try setting the PCI latency for that device downwards.

I have to admit that it does seem pretty wierd, if you rule out the cable being the problem, and with a clean install, if it affects two different NICs using different chipsets. I know that my MSI KT4V-L's onboard Via Rhine II NIC seems to have some analog-noise issues that cause corrupted/dropped frames every once in a while, but adding a PCI NIC cures that.

 

[nomura]

Thanks for the reply. I tried three cables and the results didn?t change. however one thing that I noticed (may have been tricked) was that that when using long cables 50ft the computer timed out slightly more often. When using a 3ft and 10ft it still timed out however not as much as with the 50ft. I also tried putting the computer in the place of my computer on the network and using the cable that I use and the ping timeouts still existed. I?m truly stumped. I will try moving/removing the Linksys network card and let you know about the results. see ya

-nomura

 

[nomura]

After attempting with no PCI nic installed and with the linksys in different ports there was no change in the situation. Now im _really_ stumped, seems like we have tried everything. It may be time to remove/move/replace components until somthing works.