Sl servers VS Comcast?

I have Comcast for my ISP.

My connection to the Internet is fine. I have a ping monitor I keep running, and XFire messenger, plus often Yahoo on this computer. Wired to the router is my XBox 360 next to me. Everything's connected stable.

Except SL. This thing is ALWAYS lagging out and disconnecting me, even while everything else is stable. Even SLVoice.exe stays stable. I wanted to blame SL because everything else is fine, but since I seem to often be the only one getting this, I wonder if it might be some kind of conflict between Comcast and Second Life.

So I ask if anyone else out there with Comcast has trouble with staying connected to Second Life.

I tried a support ticket, but they said that my graphics card (9800GT) was causing me to get disconnected. Which makes absolutely no sense to me...

Yeah, that makes no sense, either.

I have Comcast and no problems here now. I did have them previously with a crummy Linksys cable modem.

Are you on a wireless connection? I'd suspect some part of the network connection before the ISP or another compoment in my computer.

Nah, it's not wireless. Good, wired connection.

I thought about it being in my computer, but all the troubleshooting steps I try to check my connection to EVERYTHING ELSE says I'm golden. Hell, I even started running a ping monitor on my desktop to tell me when my connection is fouling up, but even as I get disconnected from SL, my pings to everything else is in the green.

This has been going on for months, but the last few days have been absolutely unbearable.

SL requires a lot of bandwidth......way more than most any other internet application. Comcast has, in the past, throttled high bandwidth programs but I hear they have discontinued that practice.....but it is something to keep in mind. What it appears to be, from what little you have discribed is that your router is choking with the amount of data hitting it while you are connected to SL. A reboot of the router should solve that. If it doesn't then check the firewall for the router. If niether of those fixes it try calling the manufacturer of the router's tech support..........they will walk you through configuring your router over the phone.

Well, I doubt it's the firewall, since I've configured that already.
And I've rebooted it a number of times since this problem started. I'll see if I can see anything else worth configuring in the settings, but if it were choking data, wouldn't it choke ALL data, not just SecondLife?

My sympathies

I too have Comcast, and it seems to go in cycles that sometimes things are absolutely wonderful (okay, acceptable) and other times it's almost like Comcast decided to switch me to dialup out of spite or something. It gets even worse with Second Life, moreso than with anything else I've tried.

Wish I had something constructive to suggest, but at least you know it's not just you.

[ETA] Does Snowglobe behave better? I wonder, because of the new http texture pipeline it's using, perhaps that could indicate something significant? I get pretty poor performance at times with programs that use a significant amount of UDP, or even just non-HTTP protocols.

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it would only choke on massive amounts of data........if that is the problem in the first place. I don't know if that is the problem at all.........I'm merely offering what I do know as a cause for me in the past when I've experienced similar problems. There are very few programs that exchange data in the amount that SL does. So saying your other online games or programs don't have the problem so it must not be the cause is not exactly valid. Besides, your other thread taken with this thread are likely the same issue. Be methodical in your trouble shooting.........if something helps but does not completely solve the problem then make note. It will give you clues as to where to look next.

Well, here's the thing. When I said it doesn't happen to other software, I meant WHILE it's happening to SL. I'm on SLVoice.exe or Yahoo Voice while SL lags out, so I'm talking to the person that's watching me get disconnected.

I have comcast. I have no connection issues with SL. No bandwidth issues. And in the past 30 days I have downloaded 350GBs without being capped, so, so much for their claim they are capping people at 250gb - but that could be because i am in a rural area and they just do not care.

I have recently been having some of the same problems with lagging out on a Comcast connection. It hasn't been regular enough to pin point for sure, but we have been getting A LOT of rain where I am. Weather seems to crap out everything for Comcast pretty easily.

Yeah, it does increase in bad weather, but I'm also getting it in good weather, too. I can't find any way to predict it and troubleshoot it.

Perhaps it is the city you are in?

Larger cities i hear have bad problems with cable because of everyone using the same line..or something to that effect.

have you tried setting tSL's bandwidth throtle to the minimum see if it still causes disconects?

Also, glitches that aren't directly related to network at all, but that still freeze the SL process for long enough will also cause disconnects.

Btw, some versions of Windows come with certain limits for connections set lower than necessary, I think when the limit is reached it is recorded in the system events log, I'm not sure

I turned down the bandwith settings in Sl, and even did a total fresh install of Windows to make sure it's not on my machine. We'll see if it helps.

reinstalling Windows without actually getting rid of all and every file in the harddisk (like formating, not just deleting, cause stuff get's hidden by NTFS and such) shouldn't make much difference for things like this

I think you are on the wrong track. A reinstallation of Windows (or any other OS) without a format first more often than not causes more problems than you had be begin with.........and seldom fixes the problem you were attempting to resolve. Looking at the time of your post before you saying you reinstalled Windows I don't think you formated first........a complete format will take quite a few minutes depending on how large your hard drive is. I know it takes 2 to 4 hours to completely install Windows and get it updated. I'm pretty sure you installed over your existing Windows........good luck.

Nope, full HDD wipe and reinstall.

ouch, I'm sorry to hear that, good luck


/me hates atomic solutions like formating and such, completly getting rid of whatever might be there that was bad or good in order to try to get rid of a problem

Have you tried temporarily bypassing the router and connecting directly to your modem?

jem

Well, now I'm having a whole new issue, looks like my CPU is failing. Looks like just plain a bad week for my computer. This troubleshooting is on hold since I can't even start SL anymore.

Well, I can. But it starts up and immediately uses 100% of both cores of my 3.0 GHZ CPU, and starts locked up- if I try to do anything with it, the title bar says (Not Responding). This is new, came out of nowhere.

I was experiencing the 100% CPU use on my 3ghz dual core..I don't know why. Now on my Quad core i get 50% total CPU usage depending on the viewer i use, and sometimes all the viewers will just use 24-27% and not 50% continuously.

SL works in mysterious ways.

I suggest you do this:

- Download a picture of Philip Linden
- Print the picture, frame it, set it on your computer
- Light candles on either side of the picture and one in front of your computer
- Prostrate yourself before your computer while launching the Second Life application
- Finally, Pray.

Good Luck!

Yeah. Computer's running fine now. Just can't start up Second Life anymore. Worked great for months and then... Poof.

Never in my 15+ years of using computers have I run into such an unpredictable piece of software.

Paul,

have you tried a stress test program?

Could it be something on your motherboard or your CPU or your RAM that is causing the application to immediately crash out even though you have done a full HD wipe and reinstall?

Oh, that's a good idea. I should start checking the hardware. Know any good ones?

This seems to look good.

http://www.passmark.com/download/bit_download.htm

I just tried the 64-bit version. There is a 30-day trial and no extra software or toolbar stuff installed.