USB ADSL and uptime

9th January 2002

Hello,

First off may i say the new board does look most funky!

Anywho,

I am using an Alcatel ADSL modem to provide the house dialup, and i use Wingate 4.4.2 to provide NAT to the other boxes in the house. My box is left on all the time and is permanatly connected to the net.

The trouble i am having is that after about a week of uptime the internet connection dies. Wingate is set to auto redial whenever a request is made and to never disconnect. It seems that the USB subsystem of my box dies and it is not possible to connect to the net until i reboot. My other USB devices (MS Sidewinder force feedback steering wheel and a HP 845c printer) also stop working. All other aspect of the computer seem to carry on working just fine.

Is there some sort of internal limit on the ammount of data that the USB system can cope with before it just gives up and stops transmitting data? Is there anything that i can do

My box is:

Athlon 700 MHz (Slot A)
Asus K7V M/Board with VIA KX133(8371) and VIA VT82C686A chipset
512 pc133 RAM
2 HHDs
1 ZIP 100 (atapi)
1 CDRW/DVD Toshiba combo

Cheers, Dizz-E

**Bursley** · 9th January 2002

Do you have any errors in your system log? What about (!) in device manager when this happens?

ASHBURRN · 9th January 2002

Same problem here. The same modem.

However, my other USB devices continue working, it's just the modem that dies .. and there is a red light on it instead of the usual two green.

9th January 2002

There is nothing incriminating in the event or application logs.

I cannot remember the device managers opinion on this, it was a long time since i last checked, i just dont bother and reboot. But i do vaguly remember a ! being present, a stop-start on the device didnt get me anywhere either.

I have never had the red light come on when the modem is failing to connect, but sometimes there is no lights on the thing at all.

Dizz-E

ASHBURRN · 9th January 2002

In my case, the Device Manager doesn't say anything. A stop-start on the device doesn't do anything, yup.

When you say it fails to connect, mine just says "Dialing 1..." and that's about it.

1 is the number I use.

9th January 2002

Well wingate deals with the connecting for me and when there is a problem connecting i cannot get to the status screen to see what is happening (there would appear to be a bug in the prog). Also when wingate is failing to connect it leaks memory until i run out.

Dizz-E

9th January 2002

First. VIA chipsets are known to be under powered when it comes to usb. This has been a know issue with AMD machines for along time. The motherboards all seem to not provide enough power to the usb slots. This is why all your usb items stop working.

Im going to say that your Modem is your second problem. A weekly reboot aint all that bad thou...

Tek

obenton · 9th January 2002

Had the same problem - occasional disconnects - when my DSL modem was connected to a USB NIC, even when the NIC was connected to a powered USB hub (so that power wasn't an issue). Needed an occasional reboot, but most of the time reconnected after disconnecting and reconnecting the NIC's USB cable. Got annoying, so after awhile changed to a PCI NIC and the problem went away. USB has its quirks.

9th January 2002

Hmm,

Never did like USB, mind you all three of my devices had faultless installations, and seem to work together hapily enough.

I will consider getting a PCI NIC, can anyone recommend a reliable one? But if i am going to get a PCI NIC i may as well just get a proper router, are these things cheap?

Dizz-E

9th January 2002

Dizze

I suspect the problem may not all be your your end I presume from your address you are using BT ADSL just as I am and yes I find if I leave my computer on for a long time (3 days+) I get disconnected and in order to reconnect have to power down the modem.

I've also had this problem on the hub version with a business ADSL line(computers on 24/7) and the BT help line suggested switching the hub off and switching back on every few minutes till I get reconnected.(takes 3 or 4 attempts sometimes). It works but from what the tech help person said I was led to believe the modems couldn't always log onto the network you just had to power them down and back up again to force them to make a fresh connection until you can get logged on. Only happens every couple of months for me but may depend on how many users there are in your area.

I have a very similar system but the modem and devices are connected via a powered hub, which is supposed to get around the limitations of the Via chipset.

ASHBURRN · 9th January 2002

I'm using the same modem and I'm with FreeServe Plus.

What do you mean by power-down the modem? I don't see a power button on it.

Please explain further.

10th January 2002

Paul_ yes i am a BT customer.

It would just look like i have no choice but to reboot.

There is no power off for the Alctatel USB modem i was supplied, the only way to power cycle them is to pull the USB cable out. As some of the time it will just fail to reconnect and the other times the USB collapses i will have a poke around and see if there is a way of having the box reboot automatically.

Dizz-E

Thomas · 10th January 2002

Hi,

I have something to say too about the ADSL modem(USB)

I have the same problem too. I have an IBM desktop with Windows2000 running and ADSL installed.If I log into the system in the morning and try accessing it after I get back from work, the connection icon is present in the tray. But of no use. I get an Error message - sometimes invalid user name and password sometimes unable to find server.

I am forced to cold boot and reconnect. My colleagues in my office also experience the same problem. I use Belgacom-Skynet.

Regards
thomas

ASHBURRN · 10th January 2002

Is it the very same Alcatel Speedtouch ADSL USB modem .. the green one?

10th January 2002

Hmm,

There would seem to be a problem with these Alcatel modems. I am trying the following.

Acting on instructions on the Alcatel website i first upgraded my drivers to the latest version. And then installed the latest stuff for the VIA chipset on my mboard. (i should of known about the drivers thing!)

Its going to take quite a while to see if the uptime is affected!

Thomas, i used to only be able to get very short uptimes with my modem, a few hours or so at best. Are you using the drivers supplied on the CD? They are hideously out of date, get the lastest ones from the website.

Dizz-E