Win98 fails....Win2K works....help

[helpless]

I originally posted this on the tweaks foum, but TrueAmerican suggested I try here............

I'm having trouble with dialling into an Intranet by either 56K or ISDN. The problem is that with win2K everything is fine, but with win 98 the browser (IE4, 5 and 6) somethimes (1 in 10) freezes (can't even ping from DOS). If I put a router in front of the PC it's OK (the PC is then using the LAN card and the router dials). But when using DUN with a 56K modem or ISDN card it keeps failing.

Don't think it's the modem/ISDN card or drivers as it's happening on many PC's.

I can't help thinking it's to do the normal issues of DUN, but I can't apply the tweaks to 500 PCs nor do I want to upgrade 500 PC's to win2k.

Anybody had similar problems ?

Any advice welcome.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Wow that's an odd one. Going to assume you have your internet connection settings switched for IE (dial, LAN, no proxy).

You're saying 500 PCs....are they all the same? Is there something that has been installed in all of them that is the same, such as some odd software (you mentioned ISDN, don't know if you had any odd special log-on software with that)

Honestly I never really had problems with DUN. Sometimes, like any component in Windows, it blows up, and going to control panel/add remove programs/windows setup...removing all of DUN, rebooting, rebooting a second time, then adding it fresh from cabs, reboot...and it's often better. On Windowsupdate.microsoft.com there was a 128 bit DUN upgrade for 98. Can often help. With 95 I just used to do the DUN 1.3 upgrade.

Often browser freezing can be helped by manually emptying Temp, Downloaded Program Files, and Cookies directories.

But then you mention pinging problems....this can be wsock32.dll related. If it was, then you could never ping or browse fine, yet you can 9/10 times.

Latest anti-virus...those pesky .kak and w32 hybris virus's sucked and affected winsock. Then again, the fact that you can plug into a router and work fine rules that out.

Does each computer connect with it's own modem? All using the same ISP? Dial Up Adapter settings all set to obtain auto? NetBEUI and IPX unchecked? Winipcfg show the correct settings when you are connected via DUN?

I think the first thing I'd try is to download that 128 bit DUN update and pop it on a couple of machines....see what happens.

[helpless]

Thanks for the advice YeOldeStonecat.

Somebody has found a fix for it today - disable software compression in Windows DUN (Properties_Server Types), I think the default is on.

It appears that the size of the homepage didn't help (500Kb) and we were setting the don't defrag flag in TCP/IP. Both have remained the same, so we are still scratching our head as to why/what it's fixed, but I thought I'd let people know for future reference.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Wow...unusual one there...but thanks for letting us know, it's always good to file away oddball ones like this for future use. It still doesn't sit right with me though, curious what the setup is hardware wise across the board, etc etc. But. Hey, key is it's working now.