corrupt downloads with verizon dsl

rmoore88 · 12-27-2005, 03:07 PM

I got verizon dsl last week and many of the files i download are corrupt. zip, rar, exe, wmv are the types that are corrupt mostly. It happens on all web sites. I use a download manager, but it still happens even if i dont use it. verizons server crashed or something on friday and was not fixed until today(tuesday). when i called them friday i told them about this and they said that it would be fixed. The internet works now but downloads are still corrupt. How can i fix this?

**johnwill** · 12-28-2005, 08:56 AM

If this is really a Verizon issue, you can't fix it, only they can.

I suspect this may be something on your machine, but it's hard to know from the limited information. First off, I would dispense with the download manager totally until you sort this out, you don't need any more variables.

Do you have a broadband router? What is the make/model of all the equipment, as well as the version/patch level of Windows in use?

rmoore88 · 12-29-2005, 03:51 PM

I have a router, its a linksys wrt54g v5. The router is not the problem because it still happens without it. The modem is a westell 6100. I have xp home/sp1. Verizon said that it is not their problem. It could be my computer because i tried 2 downloads that were always corrupt on my computer on a windows 98 that i have and neither were corrupt. I never had this problem with dial-up.

vtel57 · 12-29-2005, 04:50 PM

I've never known the ISP to be at fault in corrupt d-load troubles. I think you have a connection settings problem on your own system. I would go to BroadBand Reports and use their Tools to diagnose the problem. Pay particular attention to the results of the Tweak Test.

Let us know what you find out.

Luck!

**johnwill** · 12-29-2005, 06:56 PM

Well, if they're corrupt on one and not the other, I think we've eliminated the ISP as a source of the problem.

I'd be looking at the NIC settings, or perhaps even something as simple as the cable you're using for the computer to modem connection.

rmoore88 · 12-29-2005, 07:06 PM

This is the results of the tweak test. I'm not really sure what it means. I thought it might be bad ram but i ran a ram test and it did not show any errors. my computer sometimes crashes to the bsod, but only when connected to verizon. my windows 98 will crash if it is connected to verizon for more than 5 minutes, sometimes only seconds.

1. Your Tweakable Settings:
Receive Window (RWIN): 64240
Window Scaling: off
Path MTU Discovery: ON
RFC1323 Window Scaling: OFF
RFC1323 Time Stamping: OFF
Selective Acks: OFF
MSS requested: 1452
TTL:
(less any hops behind firewall)
63
TTL remaining: 50
TOS/TOS subfield: 0
TOS/Flags:

2. Test 59533 byte download
Actual data bytes sent: 59533
Actual data packets: 42
Max packet sent (MTU): 1492
Max packet recd (MTU): 1492
Retransmitted data packets: 0
sacks you sent:
pushed data pkts: 4
data transmit time: 0.789 secs
our max idletime: 2988.5 ms
transfer rate: 15380 bytes/sec
transfer rate: 123 kbits/sec
This is not a speed test!
transfer efficiency: 100%

3. ICMP (ping) check
Minimum ping: 91.66 ms
Maximum ping: 109.28 ms
Ping stability:
98.80 100.75 108.30 109.28 102.41 106.62 103.09 101.01 91.66 93.53

Notes and recommendations:
Turn on Selective Acks (FAQ #578)
Change MTU to 1500 (FAQ #652, #695)
Choose RWIN between 7260 and 20328 (FAQ #586)
download/use DRTCP .. (FAQ #578)
Read the tweak FAQ

Notes and recommendations:
Good data stream (no/few rexmits)
2+ second stall detected (FAQ #1606)

Notes and recommendations:
Looking good

vtel57 · 12-29-2005, 08:29 PM

For starters, I would follow the recommendations they gave you:

Notes and recommendations:
Turn on Selective Acks (FAQ #578)
Change MTU to 1500 (FAQ #652, #695)
Choose RWIN between 7260 and 20328 (FAQ #586)

However, be aware that this requires you to modify your Registry. Back-up and save your Registry on removable media before making any changes. I'm not saying that this will fix your problem, but it should improve your connection. See HERE for steps to tune your system for DSL. Use the BroadBand Reports recommedations above for your RWIN setting.

I would definitely follow the advice of John Will also. Incorrect NIC settings and faulty cabling can definitely cause you problems.

Let me be sure I'm understanding you... this is a Win98 system, correct? It's also possible that you have system problems. You mention that your system locks up when on DSL in a matter of seconds. If this is so, how are you managing to d-load anything from anywhere? Please give us some more info about your system... proc/speed, RAM, etc.

rmoore88 · 12-29-2005, 09:29 PM

I have done all of the things that the test said, but it still says to turn selective acks on. It is on. the cables are fine, i have tried different ones, but i still have the problem
my xp is
amd athlon 64 3500
1 gig pny ram
asus a8n-sli motherboard

i can download things on the 98 because like i said sometimes it will take a few minutes before it locks up. the downloads run fast and when one finishes i can unplug the ethernet cable and it wont crash
toshiba 3100
celeron processor
63 mb ram

vtel57 · 12-29-2005, 09:54 PM

Well, rmoore88... I still suspect something is amiss with your XP system. Keep this thead active and a more experienced member will pop in with some further advice.

Luck!

rmoore88 · 01-01-2006, 08:09 PM

I noticed that when downloads ran slow they usually were not corrupt, so i found a download manager that would limit the download speed. I usually get speeds above 350 Kbytes/sec. I limited the speed to 200 Kbytes/sec and the downloads were not corrupt. I'm not sure how high i can set the speed. How can i find out what the problem with higher speeds is?

vtel57 · 01-01-2006, 09:22 PM

What you're describing is a text book description of faulty cabling, connectors, or cable amplifiers... all of which are the cable company's problem, not yours. Now that the holiday is over with, I'd be on the phone to my cable company first thing in the morning. Have them send out a tech. He'll have his own laptop that he can hook to your line to test. He'll attempt to d-load files from the cable company's server. He can measure speed and line quality with his equipment... at least that's the way Time Warner works in my area.

rmoore88 · 01-02-2006, 03:56 PM

The phone cable that runs underground to my house has been cut many times by county workers. Could this be the faulty cable? All of the cables in my house are new.

vtel57 · 01-02-2006, 04:02 PM

Phone and cable are two different things. If you have Cable DSL, that's not the same thing as ADSL from your phone company. Cable DSL comes into your house on the TV cable and is split off to the cable modem and then to your system. ADSL provided by your phone company comes over the phone line. But yes, any cutting/splicing will affect the ability of a line to carry signal, especially in the higher frequency ranges where Cable DSL works.

Did you call you ISP today?

EDIT: By the way, new doesn't mean a thing. In my brother's condo where he was having his problems with cable DSL, ALL the cabling/connections were brand new. One badly installed connector caused all the problems.

rmoore88 · 01-02-2006, 11:28 PM

well, now i have bigger problems. my computer began to crash more often than before. the error report thing would come up and i would send them. it suggested that i install the windows updates, so i did. after that my computer would no longer boot normally. I booted in safe mode and did system restore, but it would not let me restore to any dates last year. i did the restore to before the first security update it had, but that didnt fix it, so i went and uninstalled all of the updates in safe mode. now it wont boot in safe mode either. i can access the hard drive as a slave to this one, unfortunately this hard drive is only 6 gig and was cloned onto the larger 120 gig one. this drive has the same problems. i also have a 40 gig hd that used to have data on it from my old computer that broke 6 months ago. can i somehow make the 120 gig boot again?

vtel57 · 01-03-2006, 10:19 AM

Well, my friend.... it seems you definitely are not having a fun time with your computer these days. You can attempt to save/transfer important data between those various drives, attempt OS repairs, hunt down corrupted drivers, etc. All of which is a major time consumer and pain in the rear area. If this was me, I'd pick the drive I want to use as my primary drive and I'd wipe it and reinstall Windows and all necessary drivers and updates. That would give me a fresh start.*

*Note: I'm not suggesting you do this. This is what I would do in your situation. However, you'll have to decide on your own how you want to handle your computer troubles based on your own level of knowledge and resources available.

I wish you luck!

~Eric

rmoore88 · 01-10-2006, 07:00 PM

ok, it has taken a long time but i have reinstalled windows on another hard drive and have most of the data moved over from the old one. i used a different cd to install windows this time, to try to fix the crashing problem, and i think it is fixed, but i dont really have a way to test it. the cd that i used this time did not have sp1, so i downloaded it, 125mb, and it was not corrupt, but other things are still corrupt. could it be a problem with sp1? i would not have bothered to install it, but some of my programs needed it to run. the only other things i could think of are hardware issues, i have switched cables many times, or verizon is causing it.

12-27-2005, 03:07 PM	#1 (permalink)
rmoore88 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 32 OS: XP	corrupt downloads with verizon dsl I got verizon dsl last week and many of the files i download are corrupt. zip, rar, exe, wmv are the types that are corrupt mostly. It happens on all web sites. I use a download manager, but it still happens even if i dont use it. verizons server crashed or something on friday and was not fixed until today(tuesday). when i called them friday i told them about this and they said that it would be fixed. The internet works now but downloads are still corrupt. How can i fix this?

12-28-2005, 08:56 AM	#2 (permalink)
johnwill Manager, Networking Forums Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: S.E. Pennsylvania, US Posts: 41,721 OS: Windows 7, XP-Pro, Vista, Linux Blog Entries: 1	If this is really a Verizon issue, you can't fix it, only they can. I suspect this may be something on your machine, but it's hard to know from the limited information. First off, I would dispense with the download manager totally until you sort this out, you don't need any more variables. Do you have a broadband router? What is the make/model of all the equipment, as well as the version/patch level of Windows in use? __________________ If TSF has helped you, Tell us about it! or Donate to help keep the site up! Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

12-29-2005, 04:50 PM	#4 (permalink)
vtel57 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Tampa, FL, USA Posts: 24 OS: Win XP Pro	I've never known the ISP to be at fault in corrupt d-load troubles. I think you have a connection settings problem on your own system. I would go to BroadBand Reports and use their Tools to diagnose the problem. Pay particular attention to the results of the Tweak Test. Let us know what you find out. Luck! Last edited by vtel57; 12-29-2005 at 04:52 PM.

12-29-2005, 06:56 PM	#5 (permalink)
johnwill Manager, Networking Forums Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: S.E. Pennsylvania, US Posts: 41,721 OS: Windows 7, XP-Pro, Vista, Linux Blog Entries: 1	Well, if they're corrupt on one and not the other, I think we've eliminated the ISP as a source of the problem. I'd be looking at the NIC settings, or perhaps even something as simple as the cable you're using for the computer to modem connection. __________________ If TSF has helped you, Tell us about it! or Donate to help keep the site up! Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

01-02-2006, 04:02 PM	#13 (permalink)
vtel57 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Tampa, FL, USA Posts: 24 OS: Win XP Pro	Phone and cable are two different things. If you have Cable DSL, that's not the same thing as ADSL from your phone company. Cable DSL comes into your house on the TV cable and is split off to the cable modem and then to your system. ADSL provided by your phone company comes over the phone line. But yes, any cutting/splicing will affect the ability of a line to carry signal, especially in the higher frequency ranges where Cable DSL works. Did you call you ISP today? EDIT: By the way, new doesn't mean a thing. In my brother's condo where he was having his problems with cable DSL, ALL the cabling/connections were brand new. One badly installed connector caused all the problems. Last edited by vtel57; 01-02-2006 at 04:05 PM.

12-29-2005, 03:51 PM	#3 (permalink)
rmoore88 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 32 OS: XP	I have a router, its a linksys wrt54g v5. The router is not the problem because it still happens without it. The modem is a westell 6100. I have xp home/sp1. Verizon said that it is not their problem. It could be my computer because i tried 2 downloads that were always corrupt on my computer on a windows 98 that i have and neither were corrupt. I never had this problem with dial-up.

12-29-2005, 07:06 PM	#6 (permalink)
rmoore88 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 32 OS: XP	This is the results of the tweak test. I'm not really sure what it means. I thought it might be bad ram but i ran a ram test and it did not show any errors. my computer sometimes crashes to the bsod, but only when connected to verizon. my windows 98 will crash if it is connected to verizon for more than 5 minutes, sometimes only seconds. 1. Your Tweakable Settings: Receive Window (RWIN): 64240 Window Scaling: off Path MTU Discovery: ON RFC1323 Window Scaling: OFF RFC1323 Time Stamping: OFF Selective Acks: OFF MSS requested: 1452 TTL: (less any hops behind firewall) 63 TTL remaining: 50 TOS/TOS subfield: 0 TOS/Flags: 2. Test 59533 byte download Actual data bytes sent: 59533 Actual data packets: 42 Max packet sent (MTU): 1492 Max packet recd (MTU): 1492 Retransmitted data packets: 0 sacks you sent: pushed data pkts: 4 data transmit time: 0.789 secs our max idletime: 2988.5 ms transfer rate: 15380 bytes/sec transfer rate: 123 kbits/sec This is not a speed test! transfer efficiency: 100% 3. ICMP (ping) check Minimum ping: 91.66 ms Maximum ping: 109.28 ms Ping stability: 98.80 100.75 108.30 109.28 102.41 106.62 103.09 101.01 91.66 93.53 Notes and recommendations: Turn on Selective Acks (FAQ #578) Change MTU to 1500 (FAQ #652, #695) Choose RWIN between 7260 and 20328 (FAQ #586) download/use DRTCP .. (FAQ #578) Read the tweak FAQ Notes and recommendations: Good data stream (no/few rexmits) 2+ second stall detected (FAQ #1606) Notes and recommendations: Looking good

12-29-2005, 08:29 PM	#7 (permalink)
vtel57 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Tampa, FL, USA Posts: 24 OS: Win XP Pro	For starters, I would follow the recommendations they gave you: Notes and recommendations: Turn on Selective Acks (FAQ #578) Change MTU to 1500 (FAQ #652, #695) Choose RWIN between 7260 and 20328 (FAQ #586) However, be aware that this requires you to modify your Registry. Back-up and save your Registry on removable media before making any changes. I'm not saying that this will fix your problem, but it should improve your connection. See HERE for steps to tune your system for DSL. Use the BroadBand Reports recommedations above for your RWIN setting. I would definitely follow the advice of John Will also. Incorrect NIC settings and faulty cabling can definitely cause you problems. Let me be sure I'm understanding you... this is a Win98 system, correct? It's also possible that you have system problems. You mention that your system locks up when on DSL in a matter of seconds. If this is so, how are you managing to d-load anything from anywhere? Please give us some more info about your system... proc/speed, RAM, etc.

12-29-2005, 09:29 PM	#8 (permalink)
rmoore88 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 32 OS: XP	I have done all of the things that the test said, but it still says to turn selective acks on. It is on. the cables are fine, i have tried different ones, but i still have the problem my xp is amd athlon 64 3500 1 gig pny ram asus a8n-sli motherboard i can download things on the 98 because like i said sometimes it will take a few minutes before it locks up. the downloads run fast and when one finishes i can unplug the ethernet cable and it wont crash toshiba 3100 celeron processor 63 mb ram

12-29-2005, 09:54 PM	#9 (permalink)
vtel57 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Tampa, FL, USA Posts: 24 OS: Win XP Pro	Well, rmoore88... I still suspect something is amiss with your XP system. Keep this thead active and a more experienced member will pop in with some further advice. Luck!

01-01-2006, 08:09 PM	#10 (permalink)
rmoore88 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 32 OS: XP	I noticed that when downloads ran slow they usually were not corrupt, so i found a download manager that would limit the download speed. I usually get speeds above 350 Kbytes/sec. I limited the speed to 200 Kbytes/sec and the downloads were not corrupt. I'm not sure how high i can set the speed. How can i find out what the problem with higher speeds is?

01-01-2006, 09:22 PM	#11 (permalink)
vtel57 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Tampa, FL, USA Posts: 24 OS: Win XP Pro	What you're describing is a text book description of faulty cabling, connectors, or cable amplifiers... all of which are the cable company's problem, not yours. Now that the holiday is over with, I'd be on the phone to my cable company first thing in the morning. Have them send out a tech. He'll have his own laptop that he can hook to your line to test. He'll attempt to d-load files from the cable company's server. He can measure speed and line quality with his equipment... at least that's the way Time Warner works in my area.

01-02-2006, 03:56 PM	#12 (permalink)
rmoore88 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 32 OS: XP	The phone cable that runs underground to my house has been cut many times by county workers. Could this be the faulty cable? All of the cables in my house are new.

01-02-2006, 11:28 PM	#14 (permalink)
rmoore88 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 32 OS: XP	well, now i have bigger problems. my computer began to crash more often than before. the error report thing would come up and i would send them. it suggested that i install the windows updates, so i did. after that my computer would no longer boot normally. I booted in safe mode and did system restore, but it would not let me restore to any dates last year. i did the restore to before the first security update it had, but that didnt fix it, so i went and uninstalled all of the updates in safe mode. now it wont boot in safe mode either. i can access the hard drive as a slave to this one, unfortunately this hard drive is only 6 gig and was cloned onto the larger 120 gig one. this drive has the same problems. i also have a 40 gig hd that used to have data on it from my old computer that broke 6 months ago. can i somehow make the 120 gig boot again?

01-03-2006, 10:19 AM	#15 (permalink)
vtel57 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Tampa, FL, USA Posts: 24 OS: Win XP Pro	Well, my friend.... it seems you definitely are not having a fun time with your computer these days. You can attempt to save/transfer important data between those various drives, attempt OS repairs, hunt down corrupted drivers, etc. All of which is a major time consumer and pain in the rear area. If this was me, I'd pick the drive I want to use as my primary drive and I'd wipe it and reinstall Windows and all necessary drivers and updates. That would give me a fresh start.* *Note: I'm not suggesting you do this. This is what I would do in your situation. However, you'll have to decide on your own how you want to handle your computer troubles based on your own level of knowledge and resources available. I wish you luck! ~Eric

01-10-2006, 07:00 PM	#16 (permalink)
rmoore88 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 32 OS: XP	ok, it has taken a long time but i have reinstalled windows on another hard drive and have most of the data moved over from the old one. i used a different cd to install windows this time, to try to fix the crashing problem, and i think it is fixed, but i dont really have a way to test it. the cd that i used this time did not have sp1, so i downloaded it, 125mb, and it was not corrupt, but other things are still corrupt. could it be a problem with sp1? i would not have bothered to install it, but some of my programs needed it to run. the only other things i could think of are hardware issues, i have switched cables many times, or verizon is causing it.