35 replies to this topic

[jaydfox]

I'm ready to start pulling out my hair! [angry]

It's a simple home network; it should be f***ing point-and-click simple to set up! At first it worked, and I was able to get to microsoft.com and slashdot.org (don't know about the others). Then slashdot.org started partially loading, and microsoft.com stopped loading. Then slashdot.org stopped loading altogether.

Then I noticed that this page wouldn't load:
http://www.imminst.org/film.php

I was testing it on the new server, so I thought maybe it was a problem on the new server. But no, it doesn't load on the old server either. It loads fine from laptop #1, but it only partially loads (the top banner and menu) on laptop #2. I traced the problem to the embedded google video (well, when I viewed the source, the source stopped in the middle of the source attribute, ending here: "...Aew%26sigh%3DreX85xiq_95HSDDsBZKj4Gh8uL0%26beg".

Anyway, I think it might be the fact that it references a URL on a site that won't load, and IE tries to load that file in parallel and just gives up. I don't know, I'm just guessing at this point.

Anyway, I tried reconfiguring the network from scratch, and that made problems worse: the only site I was able to get to was google.com and its subdomains (e.g., gmail.google.com).

After much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, I "fixed" the network again, by which I mean that I could access imminst.org and a few other sites, but most of the internet was still inaccessible, especially the aforementioned slashdot.org and any microsoft-related site.

So I decided to bite the bullet and install WinProxy. After an eternal hell of trying to get the computers to talk to each other (laptop #1, the proxy, could ping laptop #2, but not vice versa), I realized that at some point I had accidently turned on the firewall on the wireless connection on laptop #1, when I had meant to turn on the firewall on the ethernet/Internet connection! That was a f***ing waste of a dozen reboots and 90 minutes of my time, in the wee hours of the morning I might add (it's currently 5:39 AM as I type this parenthetical comment)!

And now where am I at? If I configure WinProxy as an open relay, then I can reach microsoft.com... YAY!!!

However, it's slow as hell. No, it's sssllllloooooooooooo.... -ooooowwww as hell.

So I reconfigured it as NAT. That sped it up, so that it's only ssllloooowww, which is bearable for reading static pages, but not so good for interactive sites.

The catch? F***ing microsoft.com stopped working again!

Sorry for the (self-censored) explitives, but I'm at my wits' end here. I need to get this working. I have three laptops that all must be able to get to various sites such as aol.com, emc.com, and microsoft.com, which are blocked when using NAT.

(If you're wondering why I have three laptops, it's kind of a long story. Laptop #3 is a company laptop that has a company firewall installed, including monitoring/tracking, so I necessitated my own laptop. Laptop #1 would in theory do the trick, except that A] it's got a tiny ass screen, and B] it's my home laptop, so I can't take it on the road with me, and starting in a week or two, I'll be on the road 75% of the time. Hence, enter laptop #2.)

(Hey, is anyone else using NAT and not having problems accessing microsoft.com from a computer that doesn't have a direct internet connection? What's your secret?)

I mean, the open proxy works, technically, I guess, but my god, it's slower than dial-up. I'm not saying that to be dramatic. It took 10 seconds to load the home page of google.com. It took minutes to load the active topics list here at ImmInst.

Hey, wait! I just got in to microsoft.com with NAT!!! It didn't load the first time, but when I clicked refresh the second time, it came up! About, oh, 4-5 minutes later...

F***ing piece of s*** networking technology.

Alright, I give up. I'm going to bed.

Does anybody have any idea how to make this work?

[jaydfox]

One last thing: With WinProxy, I can't access ssh, which I need for website administration. This just sucks more and more with each passing hour...

And the sheer sluggishness of WinProxy is more than I can take. I'm disabling it and going back to the out-of-the-box ICS method of sharing the internet connection. I'll just have to poke a hole in the wall or get a really long cable to connect the computers in different rooms to the one DSL modem, taking turns as needed.

[Bruce Klein]

Jay, I know what you're talking about... simple networking isn't always that simple.

[jaydfox]

This is so weird. I disabled WinProxy and tried going back to ICS. Now I can't get to any websites except google websites. I'm back to that problem.

I can ping imminst.org, and I can FTP to imminst.org, and I can ssh into the imminst.org server, but I can't access it via http (I'm writing this from laptop #1, of course). Isn't that weird?

This is seriously f'ed up. Anyone have any other bright ideas to try?

[tambil68]

Hi everyone. Just joined to add to this post. I had the same problem with win XP pro, (3 of my machines) and not on my two XP home machines. Turned out it was a needed update on my linksys router. It took days of research and then one call to tech support. But the research is always worth it because I learn so much more.
Another thought is that even a windows update could cause an incompatability with something coded into your router. Another thought is that it was only on the wireless, if I hooked up a cat to my rj45 ports then problem was gone. The weirdest part was the difference between XP Pro and XP home. Best Wishes, Thanks to all for the leads.