[woca]

k, i had a post earlier explaining my setup and after testing some i found my router was slowing down speeds but skipping the connection to router did not allow me to use certain games. I tried everything. no router, no switch, modem to comp, firewalls off, firewall on(nortons), norton 360 off but windows firewall on, nortons uninstalled, etc.

nothing. I recnetly got vonage which makes my connection go modem vonage router, but it was ignored and still i could not play and host some games.

why?!?! I can not think of a single reason why I could not play some multiplayer games when I had no router to port forward and no firewalls on.

can anyone give some insight? My last ditch effort is to reinstall windows but i dont know if that will do anything. I also may reinstall Steam and some games that are not working first (left4dead is one).

sadly i just bought a new router that should be here thursday or friday. at least my old router cut my speed down from 100% to 25% and hopefully new router won't. heck, maybe the problems will disappear.

[ppe1700]

wo..
lets go back to step one.

as i understand, you have a pc, connected to a switch, which is connected to a modem/router. is this connection dsl or cable?
do you have access to the device which does network address translation? (this should be the modem/router)

pls tell me more about your setup, including LAN ip addressing, then im certain i can help

[ticktock123]

Do you konw if steam has games going on different ports? i.e one game that works is on port X but the one that doesn't work is on port Y. You can tell this by doing some searching or using a program like wireshark to see what packets you are sending.

[woca]

k, more about my connection

cable jack in wall goes to modem. my modem now then connects to vonage phone thing which then redirects connection to my router. then i have two lines coming off router, one to a computer, the other to a jack in wall which lets me connect downstairs

downstairs, at other end of jack, it goes from jack to switch, where the switch the hooks up 2pcs and a 360 to the connection.

i can see a lot of problems there, but what really made me mad was when i went from cable jack to modem to wall jack which lead downstairs then to pc i still could not connect (you said to call ISP to reset connection, i did not do this though, and do not know if this would cause my failure)

[ticktock123]

Yeah what i meant by call your ISP is that when i change the connection (i.e a MAC address) that directly connects to the modem, they would drop my connection. They do a sort of MAC based routing and unless i call them they won't reset my connection (i would have to wait 24 hours).

What is the IP of the set up? are you on the same subnet for the up and down stairs?

[Dj Spiel]

god christ that looks like a mess.


So just to be sure...you tried Modem to PC and nothing? To follow up on what ticktock123 said...sometimes when u start tinkering around with stuff and have multiple connections/macs and ur ISP sees that they get upset and start locking crap down.

This shouldn't be a problem tho because if you have a router you should have NAT enabled.I would start from scratch, add one thing at a time and reset everything..clearly something is up routing and ur router not allowing the proper traffic thru. I assume you can still get port80? web?

[woca]

Originally Posted by Dj Spiel

god christ that looks like a mess.


So just to be sure...you tried Modem to PC and nothing? To follow up on what ticktock123 said...sometimes when u start tinkering around with stuff and have multiple connections/macs and ur ISP sees that they get upset and start locking crap down.

This shouldn't be a problem tho because if you have a router you should have NAT enabled.I would start from scratch, add one thing at a time and reset everything..clearly something is up routing and ur router not allowing the proper traffic thru. I assume you can still get port80? web?

yea modem to comp did nada. i dont know what port80 is. i can connect to internet like browse web, use aim, xfire, some games i can play like tf2.

my NAT is strict apparently, at least according to the 360 and i do not know how to change NAT stuff with router, i see nothing about it. if it helps my router was VPN and i think that hurt me a bit

[woca]

im also capturing data with wireshark but idk what im looking for or what the colors mean

[ticktock123]

for the wireshark, you would want to run it while you try to play a game that doesn't work. Then look at the log for packets that are being blocked or stopped or are just nto working good. It gives you an idea of exactly what is going on with your network from that computer to the ouside, and the other way around.

[woca]

Originally Posted by ticktock123

for the wireshark, you would want to run it while you try to play a game that doesn't work. Then look at the log for packets that are being blocked or stopped or are just nto working good. It gives you an idea of exactly what is going on with your network from that computer to the ouside, and the other way around.

how exactly would i determine what packets arnt working? are they colored red or something? or am i just looking at ones when the game failed to connect?

[ppe1700]

why??? why do you have two routers?? im guessing that modem is a modem/router?? it does NAT??

if so, then you need to either remove the 2nd router, or turn off NAT or open the ports up on it also

[ppe1700]

Originally Posted by woca

how exactly would i determine what packets arnt working? are they colored red or something? or am i just looking at ones when the game failed to connect?

tbh, its pointless you looking at wireshark. lets focus on how the network actually works first.

if its supposed to work with the setup but is not then wireshark captures are the next step.

[woca]

i was unaware my modem could also be a router. im pretty sure mine is just a cable modem though
i have motorola surfboard sb4220

http://www.shopping.com/xPF-Motorola

[ppe1700]

Originally Posted by woca

i was unaware my modem could also be a router. im pretty sure mine is just a cable modem though
i have motorola surfboard sb4220

http://www.shopping.com/xPF-Motorola

looks like you are correct.

okay,
have you tried connecting the pc directly to the cable modem?
this will then issue an internet ip to your pc, putting your pc directly on the internet.
if you do this, no ports should be blocked and EVERYTHING should work.
if it doesnt work at this point, then i would look at your pc firewall, or worse still the isp blocking ports.

if it does work, then we can look at the device doing NAT, to make sure the necessary ports have been configured and are being forwarded to the pc

[ticktock123]

If i remember right, i think WOCA tried to do direct connect and it didn't work along with that i think WOCA tried to turn off the Friewall (correct me if i am wrong). I agree though that the next step (before wireshark) would be to call the ISP and see if they can see the traffic or if they are blocking anything.

[ppe1700]

Originally Posted by ticktock123

If i remember right, i think WOCA tried to do direct connect and it didn't work along with that i think WOCA tried to turn off the Friewall (correct me if i am wrong). I agree though that the next step (before wireshark) would be to call the ISP and see if they can see the traffic or if they are blocking anything.

well if it dont work, here is the best next step:

put the pc on the internet and do an ipconfig to get the ip address.

then go to whatsmyip and make sure the address is the same.

if it is, have a friend with a pre vista machine open command prompt from their home and type this:

Code:

telnet x.x.x.x prt

where x.x.x.x is your IP and prt is the port number you have opened through the windows firewall OR this is the listen port on the pc for the game that does not work. i suggest turning off windows firewall, and doing the latter. pls have the game open that isnt working.

what should happen is as soon as he hits enter the cmd prompt should go all black with a flashing cursor in top right. this means it has made a connection to your pc, and your pc is listening.
if anything else happens ie a message that says "timed out" then the port either is being blocked, or your pc is not listening.

the next thing to do if this does not work as above, is have your pc, plus another connected into a switch, in the same subnet, and repeat the above. switches dont firewall, so this definately should work -
if it doesnt then your pc is suspect. if it does then your isp is suspect!

[woca]

will i need to know stuff about my cable/internet plan if i call comcast? highschooler so my dad would know that but he's currently driving cross country to a degree.

also, i did try modem to computer. i dont know if going through wall jacks did any harm, im guessing no. i also turned off my nortons firewall and xp's regular firewall



whatsmyip.net says my ip is 76.98.151.xxx
cmd prompt ipconfig /all says 192.168.0.x

part of me remembers these two ip's being different, like the 192 one is for my console, the 76 one is for internet. are they supposed to be the same?

the other pc on my network attached to switch has vista though, as for trying your testing thing

[mbentley]

Originally Posted by woca

whatsmyip.net says my ip is 76.98.151.xxx
cmd prompt ipconfig /all says 192.168.0.x

part of me remembers these two ip's being different, like the 192 one is for my console, the 76 one is for internet. are they supposed to be the same?

the other pc on my network attached to switch has vista though, as for trying your testing thing

76.98.151.x is the ip address that comcast is assigning to your cable modem.
192.168.0.x is the ip address that your router has assigned to your computer.

[woca]

k

well i used the 192
and
telnet 192.168.0.x 27015 failed with no ports in firewall, game off, firewall on
and failed with 27015 udp and tcp opened with game off and failed with firewall off. i did not restart comp at any times, i didnt think i had to

how can i test this with vista, cause that is other comp on network

in firewall, for programs, should i change scope? some are on my network(subnet) only, others on any computer (including those on internet), non on custom list

when i tested modem to comp should i have called isp to reset connection? i never did that, i just tried everything within an hour

[mbentley]

Originally Posted by woca

k

well i used the 192
and
telnet 192.168.0.x 27015 failed with no ports in firewall, game off, firewall on
and failed with 27015 udp and tcp opened with game off and failed with firewall off. i did not restart comp at any times, i didnt think i had to

how can i test this with vista, cause that is other comp on network

in firewall, for programs, should i change scope? some are on my network(subnet) only, others on any computer (including those on internet), non on custom list

when i tested modem to comp should i have called isp to reset connection? i never did that, i just tried everything within an hour

well if you try to use telnet to the 192.168.0.x address, it is trying to telnet to your own computer from your computer. i would double check to make sure that something isn't blocking outbound ports. i know that when i worked at the university's computer support center, we had problem with firewalls blocking outbound ports for our wireless vpn. one of them was norton firewall. even though we were typically not supposed to have people remove software, that was the only way we could get our vpn to work.

the windows firewall should not be blocking outgoing ports. it only blocks incoming ports as far as i know.