nlite breaks my connection

[Madhits45]

I have been a long time nlite user (since 04) but in the last 6 months something terrible has happened with every nlite disc I build. No matter what way I do it, this problem still occurs.

My problem is with wireless internet.

After every nlite build I can get connected to wireless but I get either slugish network connections or no response from some pages without hitting refresh 100 times or opening up 10 copies of the page, in which one will open.

The believed problem is something to do with ARP requests that are flooding my connections allowing for nothing to get through HTTP traffic.

I know some about networking but not enough to solve this problem.

I know the following about this problem:

- Both Wireless zero config and event viewer are unchnaged in my install. I also preserve DHCP and networking in nlite.

- It somehow does not occur on nlited windows 2003 unless you use XPconv.exe. One of the options in XPconv seems to unleash this issue. I remove basicly the same things from server with a few exceptions.

- This does not seem to affect wired internet as much. When you first connect it does but then after opening a few browser windows the issue will go away. Once restarted a wired machine will not continue to be affected like a wireless one.

- Downloads through others apps are completely unaffected. For example: a torrent file on wireless is not affected.

- Seems to affect some web pages more then others. Some pages are more sensetive to the problem. Biggest problem pages for me are: ebay, yahoo mail & msfn, and sometimes even google.

- Pages without logins or data that needs to be sent out are almost not affected.

I Have posted about this problem many times without any solid answers on what it is & how to fix it. I have decided to try to go to windows server but when this issue occured on that OS after using xpconv I broke down and decided to come back to XP.

Whoever has a possible answer please suggest away. I will post my last session if needed but nothing strange has ever been found in it.

Edited June 10, 2007 by Madhits45

[ITinerant]

Madhits45,

Check out this thread

RyanVM's forum Member Section

You need to be a registered member of RyanVM's forum.

Maybe if we work together we can figure out how to fix this problem.

I don't think it's related to nLite or Update Pack/Addons, but I'm not absolutely sure.

[Madhits45]

ITinerant thanks for your support.

This is issue is definately related to nlite or an update that is part of service pack 2. Here is how I have narrowed it down.

1. I have 3 wireless connections and all are affected the same. However some seem to respond sooner then others. I believe this simply has to do with signal strength. They are all friends connections in my neighborhood, all used on wireless and wired and none of them have issues with there routers.

2. I have tried wired connections and the issue is there usually, but it does not affect the connection after a few restarts. Almost like the connection adjusts to it. OR the interferance does not affect the connection the same.

3. I have tried the following with my nlite disc:

A. Nlite config with all my .reg entries removed. I have a lot of reg entries so removing them was a huge deal. I'm not sure how many lines but there are entries for almost everything. A lot from reg forum on msfn, none were bad or broken. I took nearly two months checking them.

B. Removed all apps from my install. None of my apps caused this issue.

C. No updates after SP2 used. Issue still occurs. Orginaly thought this was related to some kind of update MS released about 6 months ago.

D. I have tried all of the above together thinking that some conflict between two of them could be the issue.

E. Options within nlite: Not a tweak from the tweak section. I have set none of them and this issue still occurs. I have tried removing no services and issue still occurs. I have left all services in orginal state "all default" and issue still occurs.

3. I have tried a no nlite config with all of my other stuff and the issue does not occur. Leading me to believe nlite is the causer.

4. I have tried windows server 2003 with nlite and all apps and settings and the issue does not occur. However once I use an app called xpconv.exe the issue will start in windows 2003. SO nlite is not the only app that can cause this problem.

5. I have also been told by dexter_inside that this issue is related to ARP packets. He says that nlite breaks a piece of the XP IP stack and causes wireless to look at all ARP Who has requests. Basicly requests for who is on the network. On Wifi ARP is used for authentcation, connection status etc. ARP requests are needed on wifi to keep the connection active. On a working wifi connection these requests are either ignored or discarded and do not flood the connection and causes issues. This is what Dexter believes is happening. However when I used xpconv.exe on server 03 dexter was confused as to how it could happen on 03 without replaceing the stack which xpconv.exe does not do..

Perhaps #4 is the most interesting peice to this puzzle. If we can narrow down the option within xpconv.exe that causes this issue in 2003. Perhaps we can find the option in nlite that also causes this issue. Obviously whatever xpconv.exe puts into 2003 to make it like xp causes this issue with wireless connections. Particualrly interesting is the item that is replaced or changed in 2003 to make it like xp. Whatever that is is our problem. If we can narrow that down only then will nuhi fix this.

I also want to note that nlite did not have this issue before nlite 1.0 I believe. Before that version this issue did not occur from my records.

I hope someone can help..

THANK YOU

[ITinerant]

I'm pretty sure we have the same issue. I'm surprised no one else has reported it. Until your post, I thought it was something I was dealing with alone. I see you have been working on this longer and put much more work into identifying the cause and am much further along than I am. I'm hoping I can contribute something so as to find a solution. Now that I can login to the msfn group again I will post to this thread as soon as I have something constructive to add. Please keep me informed as well as the nLite group.

BTW What router do you have? Mines a Linksys WRT54G v.6

My problem affects wired the same as wireless connections.

It also seems to "fix" itself later in the day. Mornings are bad.

Oh yeah, one more thing. I'm thinking this may have started right after I made a new source by slipstreaming SP2 about six months ago. I lost my original source around then and had to re-slipstream my original disc. I'm going to get another clean SP2 source and start testing with that. If it works I'll post to this thread.

Edited June 12, 2007 by ITinerant

[ITinerant]

This sucks. I just installed a virgin (not nLited) WinXP SP-2 non-patched, non-updated; not touched in any way new source factory non-slipstreamed disc, and it had the same connection issues when used with my router as the nLited installs. The only way I could connect is w/o my router. My issues are not limited to wireless, but my wired connection (which was working great just a few hours ago) also sucks. It's a good thing my connection (cable) is so good w/o the router or I would really be losing it!

Edited June 13, 2007 by ITinerant

[Madhits45]

I think your right about the cookies.. Its working on this PC.. Ahh well Anyway..

This could be two pronged or even three pronged problem. This is what I have been thinking for a while myself.

So there maybe 3 ways you can get this to happen. 1. nlite 2. xpconv.exe 3. combanation of windows updates (however this is the least likely of the three). Other two I have almost prooved them to be the culprits.

Your recent issues with your connection have to be something with your router and are most likely some kinda of fluke. I have strange things happen with my internet connection all the time on my unedited 2003 install. Those issues always come and go. However this issue with nlite is consistent and annoying. I cant simple restart or unplug my router and get this to stop. Thats the kind of problem I am having. Take look at your firewall settings on the router. Also consider trying another model router. Perhaps the signal strength from your cable modem is weak. That can cause all kinda of strange issues. Ask comcast or whatever to replace your cable modem. I bet that would solve that.

You also mentioned changing sources. I actually had a small piece of this issue go away when I did that. This also affected dial up using a pre integrated sp2 disc at one time. Once I switched away from that pre integrated sp2 disc still using nlite I had no dial up issues. I detirmed that nlite did not like that integrated sp2 disc. I went back to the source I had integrated myself & that problem went away. However the rest remained.

I have also changed browsers from IE6 to IE7 and firefox. Issue is with all three and they all act exactly the same.

I think dexter inside was onto something with this wireless issue. I also had the occational time of day that worked better then others with wireless. Like I said I have 3 different routers with 3 different connections that I connect to and this still happens. 1 is a 2wire router, one is a netgear and another is a linksys. It happens on all three but the best working one is the 2wire router. One thing I know makes this almost go away is having a torrent downloading. If I have something downloading that keeps a steady flow of data the issue is none exsistent during that time. Restart and you have to get a download going to get your connection going again or wait till it wants to go. I have about 5 wireless cards I can use with the three connections around me I have tried all combanations. Still none edited windows xp or server 03 with no xpconv.exe is the only thing that always works without a torrent downloading in the background to keep the data flowing.

What we need to do is it get nuhi looking at this. When he transitioned from .98,.99 or 1.00 to 1.01 this issue appeared. Something he changed then caused this to happen. My girlfriend has her laptop done with the exact same setup (last session, installs and reg's) and the one difference is it was done with nlite .99 or 1.00 I believe. If there is a way to tell I can make sure on this.

I have 1.01 of nlite but not 1.00 anymore. If I had that old nlite I bet this issue would go away by using it. 1.01 it still happens.

Even with that proof I dont want to use that old version due to limitations it has. However I am so annoyed with this problem if I had it I would use it at this point. So if someone has either .98, .99 or 1.00 please let me know.. I am going to do some hard searches to see if I can find those old versions. If this problem goes away I'll have hard evedence that its not something I'm doing.

THANKS

Edited June 13, 2007 by Madhits45

[jackie]

i have some what the same issue as you have but maybe not as bad as yours. i am not really sure if it is nlite that is causing it. i have 3 nlited pc here and only one of them has this issue. the one with the problem is on a USB adapter and the others are pci adapter and was wondering if it has to do with the usb tweak? what kind of adapter do you have?

[ITinerant]

Okay, I replaced my cable modem even though I had a good connection w/o the router. My new cable modem has a wireless access point built-in. In case you're interested, it's a Motorola Cable Modem Gateway SBG900. My old Toshiba PCX100U DOCSIS modem was 6 years old. I think that may have been the problem. I'll know better in a few days.

New Cable modem fixed my problem without a doubt.

Edited June 15, 2007 by ITinerant

[Madhits45]

i have some what the same issue as you have but maybe not as bad as yours. i am not really sure if it is nlite that is causing it. i have 3 nlited pc here and only one of them has this issue. the one with the problem is on a USB adapter and the others are pci adapter and was wondering if it has to do with the usb tweak? what kind of adapter do you have?

Interesting info. I have 4 different adapters. 2 are USB and 2 are PCMICA. I have tried all of them and this issue seems to be consistent across them all.

Interestingly I think I might be onto something with this. I am now using a different method for installing my drivers. I am trying 3rd party driver method used by driver packs. This method has a similar approach to what I was using before but is a lot better. I don't know if this will fix my problem but maybe it will. I am testing this to see what happens.

If not I have windows 2003 almost configured the way I want it finally and it may fill the gap that XP did perfectly.

[hungry-SHEll]

Interesting Sync.

I have also facing some what same problem as by Madhits45. Mine conection is a Bluetoth Link.. recently one month before i Nlited my XP and use this and from then i got the problem which is the conection of Internet automaticaly get DISCONECTED (ranging in 5 minutes to 30 moinutes) and also the bluetooth icon in the systray shown as conected but actually the link with bluetooth device is not active.

I ever thought that the problem is in my USB Bluetooth Adapter or remote Device. I had changed my both devices but the problem is still the same.

Again the problem is not ocur in the same system with the os not slimstremed by Nlite.