strange (non-knoppix) networking problem (need help)

[SillyFly]

hi.
lately I've been having strange problems on my internet connection.
whenever I try to access a web site, I get "server timeout", and I have to reload for the page to load. this happnes regardless of what browser I use, and at any time of the day.
also, FTP connections hang on entering passive mode.
this isn't hardware problem, because on the same computer, running Knoppix, these problems are gone.
also, this isn't network problems, as other nodes on the same network don't have there problems either.

these got me to the conclusion that it has something to do with my settings, but I don't know what to look for...
my comp is an amd 700, with 256MB ram. it is connected to a win2k comp running dhcp (the win2k is connected to the internet, and is serving as my default gateway).
no firewall is running on either comp.

any clue?

[turbine]

Try pinging the win2k server box to see if you see any problems there. I have a very similar setup to yours, my win2k is connected to the net via dsl on usb. Every now and then I have to reset the dsl box and reboot the win2k machine to clear up problems like you're describing. Difference is that when I have a problem on one box on my lan they all have same problem. Ping the win2k from the problem machine and then ping from one of the good machines and see if there are large differences such as in response times. Start there.

[gowator]

try

route -a

and

ifconfig -a

and post back!
[/code]

[SillyFly]

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.0.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
127.0.0.0       *               255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
default         192.168.0.1     0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0

this is the output of "route". route -a says "no such option -a"

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 52:54:00:DA:63:33  
          inet addr:192.168.0.3  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:3844 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:3939 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:9 txqueuelen:100 
          RX bytes:2618257 (2.4 Mb)  TX bytes:1121818 (1.0 Mb)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0xe800 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:300 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:300 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:20184 (19.7 Kb)  TX bytes:20184 (19.7 Kb)

and that was ifconfig -a

pinging the w2k machine (192.168.0.1) goes well, and so does traceroutes :

PING 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=128 time=0.498 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=128 time=0.511 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=128 time=0.512 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=128 time=0.504 ms

--- 192.168.0.1 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.498/0.506/0.512/0.016 ms

traceroute to knoppix.net (66.220.1.171), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
 1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  1.437 ms  0.724 ms  0.449 ms
 2  10.243.64.1 (10.243.64.1)  7.315 ms  15.649 ms  5.889 ms
 3  172.18.12.13 (172.18.12.13)  13.920 ms  10.461 ms  29.001 ms
 4  172.17.0.141 (172.17.0.141)  9.810 ms *  13.180 ms
 5  172.17.0.53 (172.17.0.53)  10.715 ms  10.767 ms  10.154 ms
 6  172.18.0.10 (172.18.0.10)  12.693 ms  12.923 ms  10.833 ms
 7  pal6-goldenlines-1-il.seabone.net (195.22.196.193)  39.198 ms  37.647 ms  38.858 ms
 8  linx-lon1-racc1.lon.seabone.net (195.22.209.109)  85.275 ms  85.358 ms  86.012 ms
 9  gsr12012.lon.he.net (195.66.224.21)  84.928 ms  83.456 ms  82.956 ms
10  pos8-0.br1.nyc.he.net (216.218.200.101)  173.409 ms  161.444 ms  160.105 ms
11  pos2-1.gsr12012.chi.he.net (64.71.157.62)  182.580 ms  181.442 ms  181.900 ms
12  pos1-0.gsr12012.sjc.he.net (64.62.227.53)  312.851 ms  303.247 ms  305.928 ms
13  pos1-2.gsr12416.fmt.he.net (64.71.128.182)  301.939 ms  303.371 ms  303.162 ms
14  pos10-0.gsr12012.fmt.he.net (216.218.193.134)  234.412 ms  233.764 ms *
15  knoppix.net (66.220.1.171)  236.758 ms  236.599 ms  238.399 ms

PING knoppix.net (66.220.1.171) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from knoppix.net (66.220.1.171): icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=252 ms
64 bytes from knoppix.net (66.220.1.171): icmp_seq=2 ttl=52 time=244 ms
64 bytes from knoppix.net (66.220.1.171): icmp_seq=3 ttl=52 time=240 ms
64 bytes from knoppix.net (66.220.1.171): icmp_seq=4 ttl=52 time=240 ms

--- knoppix.net ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3026ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 240.414/244.472/252.442/4.929 ms

i have this problem for several weeks now, and both the w2k machine and it's attached cable modem (Ambit) where restarted several times since.[/code]

[turbine]

SillyFly, those ping times look awfully excessive to me. One half second to ping 64 bytes on a 100 mbit/sec, or even a 10 mbit/sec lan seems VERY slow. This may be pointing to the problem. Have you tried pinging the w2k box from another windows box just to get a comparison? Is this knoppix box a dual boot system? If so, try bringing up the other os and doing the pinging. If the times are as slow as the ones on the knoppix then I'd start to look at the lan card itself.

[turbine]

Whoops! Belay that last post. I misread those times on the pings. Still, 3 seconds for 4 packets seems high. Your lan card could be doing a lot of retransmissions. Problem could be there.

[SillyFly]

the 3 secs total time is because ping waits 1 second between the packets.
anyway, this box isn't running Knoppix (as the title says), but Mandrake.
when booting Knoppix it is all fine, which is why I concluded it is not a hardware problem, nor a link problem, but something must have gone wrong in my configuration, I just can't figure out what

[SillyFly]

to conclude this thread -
the problem is now solved, after I have moved the cable connection from the W2K comp. to a different computer, running Windows 2003 server.

this got me to the inevitable conclusion that something went wrong with the w2k settings, and not my Linux settings.

thanks to everyone who tried to help.