[Grays]

Brief background:
I use WinXP pro SP2, and am comfortable with (but not an expert on) advanced networking settings in XP. I frequently alter my network connection settings, those of my router, and those of my DSL modem as needed to bypass router firewall, use a proxy, etc. I do not have any formal training, nor am I very familiar with networking-related diagnostic tools. I am using an Acer Aspire 7520, and due to hardware issues I cannot currently set up a desktop to test this on another computer.

The issue:
I primarily notice this when playing World of Warcraft, due to its need for a constant connection. I experience inexplicable interruptions in network connectivity for very brief (1-5 seconds) periods, which completely cut off WoW, Ventrilo, and an ongoing ping to a Google IP I have running in a command window for verification on the problem. Sometimes these disconnects are an hour or two apart. Sometimes they are clustered 5-10 minutes apart. Only once have they been extremely frequent--one every couple minutes for about 15 minutes. Sometimes, I will go an entire evening online with no disconnect at all. I have experienced these disconnects for months, both when my laptop was running Vista, and when I reformatted and installed XP.

Diagnostic/Resolution steps:
I have switched between static and dynamic IP assignment when using my router at home. I have tried different subnets for my router and modem. I have experienced the same issue on both my home connection and on a hotel connection maintained by Embassy Suites. I have experienced this both on Vista and XP (on this laptop). I have googled around and searched this forum for possible solutions, but have found nothing specific enough to explore in detail.

I am baffled as to the cause for these disconnects. Thinking that this may be interference from a program I have installed, here's a list of the things I've put on this computer. This is roughly the same set of apps I had installed on Vista. (Yes, I know there's a lot of file-sharing, but I'm careful about what I run--and I ran AVG and spybot prior to posting, with no hits on viruses or spyware.)

System Utils
AVG
Spybot
Cisco Clean Access (for univ connection)
PowerISO
DaemonTools
QT Lite
Adobe Flash + PDF Reader
7-zip

Misc.
uTorrent
Ares
BitComet
PeerGuardian
SocksCap
CCCC + mpc
CVSNT
TortiseCVS
GIMP
gzip (GnuWin32)
GTK Runtime
Firefox + Thunderbird
OpenOffice
Pidgin
Ruby
Stellarium
Ventrilo
WAMPServer

Games
WoW + WowAceUpdater
Avernum
Civ 4 + BTS, Warlords, FFH
Sins of a Solar Empire
Starcraft
Sims 2 + some xpacks

[Edit:] I _do not_ use any filesharing or significant network apps when playing WoW, for obvious reasons. None of those are active during the periods in which I observe the disconnects.

 

[BMR777]

When this happens, in task manager is SVCHOST.EXE Network Service spiking in CPU usage by any chance?

BMR777

 

[Grays]

Yes! I don't believe I've checked it *during* a disconnection, but I have observed extremely unusual scvhost.exe cpu usage during WoW that occasionally kills my framerate, and these problems occur intermittently as well during sessions when I'm experiencing disconnects.

[Edit:] I do have a brief, temporary freeze when I get forcibly disconnected. I always attribute this to WoW forcibly logging off, because it takes a moment to transition to the login screen. This could also be caused by a CPU spike. I don't know.

 

[BMR777]

I have a similar issue on my PC currently. I have a fix that may work, whether it be temporary or permanent I do not know as I have been having this issue off and on. I also have some diagnostic steps that may help determine more about your situation.

The fix that worked for me (albeit temporary) was to restart the DNS service. Go to Start > Run and type "services.msc" w/o quotes. Find the "DNS Client" service and double click it. Click on Stop and let the service stop. Then once it stops, click on Start. See if the issues are corrected.

Also, you can try flushing the DNS information. Go to Start > Run and type "cmd" w/o quotes. Then type "ipconfig /flushdns" w/o quotes and see if the issue gets better.

Hopefully these steps will better help with your issue than they did for me. They worked temporarily for me but maybe they will be better for you.

Also, next time you experience an "outage" try pinging Google by it's IP address at 64.233.187.99 and see if you get a response. You can also try going to http://64.233.187.99 during an outage. If you can connect or get good Ping results then most likely something with your DNS is screwed up same as mine. You can also try adding static DNS settings to your network connection inside of Network Connections and see if that helps, either set the DNS servers to your router or to your ISP's DNS servers and see if it helps.

BMR777

 

[Grays]

I use -t on a command line ping to run a constant Google ping to test the outages. I can confirm that it DOES interrupt the ping to google during the disconnect. (The disconnection is too brief for me to do serious troubleshooting--it literally only lasts long enough to kick me out of Vent and WoW, then I can immediately log back in. It interrupted 3 pings to google and then went back to normal.)

I also (very) frequently try to /release, /renew, and /flushdns via ipconfig during periods of frequent outages. It isn't effective. Neither is setting up a static IP, which I set up w/my router successfully, but still experience the disconnections.

I haven't yet tried actually restarting the DNS service. I have a raid tonight--I'll try that. If flushing the DNS doesn't help, however, I don't think that will have a whole lot of effect--the connection is established and running, iirc DNS just governs the establishment of connections, doesn't it?

 

[BMR777]

Well, are you pinging Google with ping google.com or with ping 64.233.187.99 because if the IP ping works but not the ping by name then it probably is a DNS issue, but if both the ping by name and IP fail then it is something else.

Also, with the DNS, I think if it were to work then fail that could cause the connection failure if it has to look up a page's info and fails. I don't think it always caches the DNS info so I think a DNS failure or a failure of SVCHOST.exe to get the correct DNS information could cause a brief outage.

 

[Grays]

I ping by IP when testing with ipconfig -t. That's the one that gets interrupted.

During a WoW session and/or a Vent session, though, I don't think any DNS lookups are necessary. The connection to each server is established and running. They disconnect simultaneously and instantly. Furthermore, they connect directly via IP--I connect to my vent server by an IP and not an URL. I'm also 99% sure that WoW itself just stores a list of server IPs and connects directly unless the server can't be found; there'd be no reason not to.

 

[Grays]

I fixed it! (I hope.) Two evenings with no disconnects. I think I know what was causing it. Stating it clearly so that Google picks it up:

Cisco Clean Access causes random disconnects in Windows XP.

My hypothesis is that CCA (which is used as a login application and virus scanner for secure networks) was constantly trying to log into my university's server. It is possible that it was deliberately interrupting connections to cut down on filesharing--because it also acts as an overzealous xenophobe and doesn't let you log into the university network if you have ANY filesharing apps installed. This could inadvertantly cut off the connections to WoW and Ventrilo by killing the whole internet connection.

Yay for the war against filesharing?

 

[ConfusedMacMan]

I have a mac and have CCA installed for my school. Same thing happens to me. Good hypothesis on why it disconnects but depressing that nothing can be done...