WoW won't work...

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

Because my video card decided to commit suicide.

Ok, I'm mainly just posting a thread like this, because there is so many threads with too simple of titles in this forum at times. II just moved to a new apartment, got my internet connection working, went to play WoW... and my video card decided that was a good time to stop... well... working right. I am hoping that one of my Ubuntu APT updates ended up with some buggy code being downloaded, which will be fixed tomorrow or Tuesday. If not... I will just have to buy a new video card. And I was enjoying my 7800 series nVidia so much....

So, not really asking for help here, mainly just ranting about technological woes. On a plus note, I got my home LAN's router updated with v24 of the DD-WRT firmware, and it is incredible with it... (I had v23RC3 DD-WRT previously), I've been able to get most of my Wi-Fi devices on a WPA-encrypted network, with only my PSP and DS still on a WEP worthless encrypted network (gotta love one router that can pretend to be multiple wi-fi access points). I got my servers all nice, running, and tucked away securely, on their battery backups along with my router and cable modem. All in all, things are working well. I just need to get a power supply to fix my guest computer, and probably a new video card for my desktop.

(if that seems like a lot of computers, it is understandable... it's all in my 1-bedroom apartment too... 2 desktops, 1 laptop, 2 servers, and my router is technically another computer as well. Not including the Wii, DS, PSP, or my iPhone... All networked together, and inter-operating quite nicely)

Oh well.... I guess I need a new video card. That really sucks. I'll have to see prices on what's available for nVidia that would be decent, at a good price. Deciding if I want to bother with online sales, or just go pick it up from BestBuy...

[Tunga]

I've been able to get most of my Wi-Fi devices on a WPA-encrypted network, with only my PSP and DS still on a WEP worthless encrypted networkInteresting setup, isn't it a little pointless though? I guess it stops packet sniffing on the other devices but in terms of hotsurfing the WEP network is the one someone would target. I have the same issue with my DS only accepting WEP, it's the only Wireless thing I own but I don't have any choice.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

Interesting setup, isn't it a little pointless though? I guess it stops packet sniffing on the other devices but in terms of hotsurfing the WEP network is the one someone would target. I have the same issue with my DS only accepting WEP, it's the only Wireless thing I own but I don't have any choice.

I have my WEP-enabled virtual AP only accepting connections from my PS and DS MACs, nothing else. That basically prevents people from hotsurfing. I also don't broadcast the WEP SSID, which is more of a "out of sight, out of mind" kind of security than anything else. So someone could try it... but not get so far.

[Tunga]

I have my WEP-enabled virtual AP only accepting connections from my PS and DS MACs, nothing else.MACs are easily spoofed, though I guess they'd need to know the address of one of your existing devices to do that.

Random trivia: I once had a router with rather broken MAC filtering logic: it would refuse a connection from any MAC address added to the filter list. All I had to do was enter every single possible MAC address minus the MACs for the 5/6 devices I was connecting to it! Suffice to say I didn't use MAC filtering on that particular router!

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

MACs are easily spoofed, though I guess they'd need to know the address of one of your existing devices to do that.

And it would have to be a device I currently don't have active on the network too. And since there's just 2 devices authorized to use it, that's a challenge ;)

Random trivia: I once had a router with rather broken MAC filtering logic: it would refuse a connection from any MAC address added to the filter list. All I had to do was enter every single possible MAC address minus the MACs for the 5/6 devices I was connecting to it! Suffice to say I didn't use MAC filtering on that particular router![/quote]

My router lets me choose it to be an exclusion, or inclusion list (either exclude the specified MACs, or include only those specified MACs).

[Tunga]

I assume that's what it was meant to be but someone forgot the option :grin: .

[clevins]

X - I have a linksys router that's supported by DD-WRT (which is new to me). Aside from the fact that it's 3rd party etc... any reason to use DD-WRT vs the stock firmware? I don't need the virtual AP stuff... so a reason for me would be performance I guess.

[elsegundo]

question: I am using WEP encryption. is there something better on my wireless? using a linksys. i see several encryption options, but i dont know what to choose.

also, if DSL connection cuts in and out every now and then, where would i start to troubleshoot?

[clevins]

El... if you can, use WPA. I'm not sure there's a ton of practical difference between WPA Personal and Enterprise and WPA2... WEP has a design flaw that renders it easy to crack. The odds of anyone cracking YOU are small... but why take the chance when you can move to something that's way more secure?

The DSL cutting in and out... Do you have line filters? I remember getting those for DSL years ago.

The other thing's I'd look at are wiring and the DSL modem. If you can, place the DSL modem and router close to where the line enters the house, vs on t he other end of the house from there. You're looking to minimize the distance it travels and the odds that at one of those places inside the house the wiring is damaged. If you can, see what the signal strength is. On my cable modem I can go to 192.168.100.1 and see several status pages. You should be able to find a similar page on your DSL modem. If so, see if one of the pages shows signal strength. Google for the model of the modem a "signal strength" and see if you can find information on what it should be.

Alternatively, it could be the modem - if it's older you might see if they'll trade it out.

Finally, you could be far away from the last repeater... you might not be able to do much about it in other words.

[elsegundo]

clevins, i think my router is on the side of the house where the phone line enters the house. it looks like it from the outside, but im not sure. also, i have filters to every phone, however, the phoneline to my modem has a spliter and also connects to a phone. so maybe i can disconnect that phone and see how it goes. sometimes i do get disconnects when that phone gets picked up. so i can say its a wiring issue, but i would not be able to solve the problem except to not use the phone connected to the splitter. the splitter basically has a jack that i can connect to the modem and another jack that i can use to connect to a different phone.

as for repeaters, i think my neighborhood is on the fritz right about now. an apartment complex just finished rennovations across the street and has added at least 150 units, so many of them would probably be using DSL. to top it off, across the street from that is a whole new neighborhood of houses. oldest house there was built maybe in 2005 so its fairly new there. i also found out that my max DSL speed (due to distance from the central office) is 1.5Mbps down and 384kbps up. this is great for web surfing, but i think its a little slow on the upload speed for great gaming latency. cable would cost a bit more at the moment.

anyway, thanks for the wpa suggestion. i think i'll use that. i dont think anyone's trying to tap my wireless when my neighbor has an open wireless connection, but still, would rather feel a little bit secured. i'll check the modem page when i get home. thanks!

[clevins]

Is the phone that's close to your router/modem cordless? If so... it operates on the same frequency as your wireless accesspoint. Try to physically separate them (base station and the wireless AP)

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

X - I have a linksys router that's supported by DD-WRT (which is new to me). Aside from the fact that it's 3rd party etc... any reason to use DD-WRT vs the stock firmware? I don't need the virtual AP stuff... so a reason for me would be performance I guess.

QoS (Quality of Service) is a godsend -- I can dictate which protocols get priority on my network, so peer-to-peer filesharing protocols, like bitTorrent are given the lowest priority, and do not interfere with anything else I am doing, while WoW is given a higher priority so that I reduce any internal latency. Plus I can hand out static addresses by MAC, so I configure my router to hand out the same IP's to all my systems on my network, and I can leave the computers in a DHCP mode (they even get their own DNS entries for my local network). I also have two VPN connections into my network possible -- OpenVPN is configured for my laptop, and I use IPSec for my iPhone. There is a great many options in the DD-WRT system, it basically makes my $100 router into a $600 - $800 router.

Elsegundo -- I'd also like to chime in that WPA is smart, just use WPA-Personal (WPA-PSK), and use AES encryption if at all possible. WPA-Enterprise requires you to set up a RADIUS server (which is complicated) usually, and WPA2 is the new enterprise version of WPA (officially, WPA2 is 802.11i). WEP is horrible for security... it is, at best, a way to prevent people from just randomly jumping on your network... and even then it is questionable. I need it for my Nintendo DS, but I've gotten everything else set up WPA-PSK(AES) finally. And, I have my WEP access point locked to only allow one MAC on it... (I would have needed two, but a firmware update on my PSP make it magically like WPA now).

The thing with WEP is, people can sniff the packets that are being transmitted back and forth, and pretty quickly come up with a working system that can read everything that isn't encrypted further (like over https encrypted web pages). So people can do things like potentially snatch passwords, bank accounts, etc right from the air.

WEP also is just a pain in the butt to set up, what with the craptastic hex codes for the passwords typically, rather than sane, easier to enter text passwords. More hassle than it is worth in my experience.

[elsegundo]

ok thanks guys.

the router and the phone is far away from each other. i tried discuonnecting the phone but i still get the spikes in lag, and it sometimes disconnects me from the internet completely. after about a minute of waiting, i can log in and latency is awesome, for a minute, then turns nasty again. latency goes from 65ms to 250ms to 900ms in a matter of a few minutes. i am not sure what can cause this. it feels like a conputer somewhere in the network finally got a hold of the internet connection again and started doing its downloads/uploads. maybe its an update im downloading for some random program i dont care about.

is there a program that can monitor my network traffic and tell me who's using the network, and what they're using? this will at least tell me if the problem is on my end and not the phone lines.

oh and one more thing about WPA/WEP, if i dont "broadcast" my network, will that help any for security??

thanks a bunch!

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

ok thanks guys.

the router and the phone is far away from each other. i tried discuonnecting the phone but i still get the spikes in lag, and it sometimes disconnects me from the internet completely. after about a minute of waiting, i can log in and latency is awesome, for a minute, then turns nasty again. latency goes from 65ms to 250ms to 900ms in a matter of a few minutes. i am not sure what can cause this. it feels like a conputer somewhere in the network finally got a hold of the internet connection again and started doing its downloads/uploads. maybe its an update im downloading for some random program i dont care about.

Tehre could be an issue with your router & router's firmware. I've seen this kind of a problem before. Another possibility is that a poorly-configured/made NIC in a system can have dramatically bizarre effects on your wifi network. When I had this problem, it turned out to be my PC's NIC was going haywire, and was randomly bursting the network with a bunch of incorrect packets, causing severe latency issues across my wifi net.

is there a program that can monitor my network traffic and tell me who's using the network, and what they're using? this will at least tell me if the problem is on my end and not the phone lines.

I don't know about for Windows, but I know of such things in Linux. I use nmap, and with a command line of:

sudo nmap -sP 10.18.75.0/24 -e wlan0, I can quickly identify everything on my network. I'm planning on constructing something that will use the XML output from nmap to build a chart for network activity a bit better.

oh and one more thing about WPA/WEP, if i dont
"broadcast" my network, will that help any for security??

It is, in my experience, a "out of sight, out of mind" method of security -- some network drivers don't look at SSIDs that aren't broadcast by default, so it makes the network invisible to those people. However, it isn't exactly the best security, as it is possible to figure things out through various hacking software, particularly if you are running on a WEP network that is easily cracked in 5 minutes or less.

thanks a bunch!

No problem.

[elsegundo]

So a little update.

I've tried this with no computers on except for mine (wired, cat5e, to router). i still get random spikes in latency that will freeze my game for maybe 30 seconds, then the screen goes fast foward to me already in battle (or dead). sometimes this doesnt happen and i get disconnected. log in several minutes later to find my character dead. then there will be 30 minutes of purely good latency, and then constant lag with occassional disconnects.

i tried downloading something called a packet sniffer? installed it and now its monitoring my network. i dont understand how it works and would rather have a program that can visually show me the computers linked to my network and the bandwidth they are using. i'll keep searching for those.

this problem has been happening periodically but only recently gotten worse. i dont know if its my network, or if its the dsl connection itself, or even if its WoW kicking me off. i've called the dsl company and they will help me once i get home, probably to look at my log from my modem to see what happening when it does disconnect first. i wonder if i can do that myself. in any case, most frustrating thing is that i do not know the problem. i know the result--- disconnect/lag, but not the problem itself, and finding a program (shareware/freeware) that can help me without confusing me has been a lesson in futility.

[clevins]

I actually see this too. I think it's a network infrastructure thing on Blizz's side or in the network ISP to get to the data center. What server are you on btw...? I'm on Alleria...

[elsegundo]

Ravenholdt. Seattle Datacenter.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

So a little update.

I've tried this with no computers on except for mine (wired, cat5e, to router). i still get random spikes in latency that will freeze my game for maybe 30 seconds, then the screen goes fast foward to me already in battle (or dead). sometimes this doesnt happen and i get disconnected. log in several minutes later to find my character dead. then there will be 30 minutes of purely good latency, and then constant lag with occassional disconnects.

i tried downloading something called a packet sniffer? installed it and now its monitoring my network. i dont understand how it works and would rather have a program that can visually show me the computers linked to my network and the bandwidth they are using. i'll keep searching for those.

this problem has been happening periodically but only recently gotten worse. i dont know if its my network, or if its the dsl connection itself, or even if its WoW kicking me off. i've called the dsl company and they will help me once i get home, probably to look at my log from my modem to see what happening when it does disconnect first. i wonder if i can do that myself. in any case, most frustrating thing is that i do not know the problem. i know the result--- disconnect/lag, but not the problem itself, and finding a program (shareware/freeware) that can help me without confusing me has been a lesson in futility.

When I saw that before, it was a router on the fritz between me and Blizz that had caused all kinds of problems. Unfortunately, there is nothing Blizzard can do unless it is their datacenter having the problem, and for you, if it isn't your ISP that has the problem... then it is somewhere between point A and point B that could be doing it, which makes it very, very difficult to do anything effectual about it.

[elsegundo]

When I saw that before, it was a router on the fritz between me and Blizz that had caused all kinds of problems. Unfortunately, there is nothing Blizzard can do unless it is their datacenter having the problem, and for you, if it isn't your ISP that has the problem... then it is somewhere between point A and point B that could be doing it, which makes it very, very difficult to do anything effectual about it.

yea. what i figured. which is why i am trying to figure out if its from my end or not. could just be my computer causing the problems.

[clevins]

Ravenholdt. Seattle Datacenter.

I wish I was there... I live in Seattle... sigh

[elsegundo]

paid character trasnfer is one solution.

[Xlorep DarkHelm]

yea. what i figured. which is why i am trying to figure out if its from my end or not. could just be my computer causing the problems.

If you were using linux, I'd recommend doing a traceroute and see where the stalling is at, between you and your server's IP (which can be kind of difficult to track down, but I'm sure someone has it available somewhere). Actually, now that I think about it, I believe the Windows version is called "tracert" -- you can use that to check hops, and see where things get a bit screwy. If you are really clever, you might be able to route your network traffic around the problem, and avoid it entirely. But that gets a bit over my head... there's only so much network geek in me.

[clevins]

X - at least for me traceroute is kind of useless. it works fine, but unless I happen to do it when the lag spike is hitting guess what it shows...? Right... everything as normal. Sigh...