Strange Network problem - Router related

[DLAS]

Hello all,

 

I've got the weirdest problem ever...

 

On a network, I swapped the router from a standard home Netgear (Was just a stop-gap solution for a rushed building move) to a Draytek Vigor 2830, everything seemed to be fine. I booted up a few computers on the network and the majority of them work. The only problem is with the 64-bit machines. Every single machine running a 64bit OS crashes on the login screen. They'll boot into safe-mode with networking and work fine, the minute they're booted normally on the network with the Draytek they just lock up. After long and fruitless conversations with Draytek and millions of different firmware versions, I'm nowhere. I've tried Google with no luck... It's like it's never happened to anyone before.

 

I can get round it for now by re-imaging with 32bit and then they work fine but it's hardly a great solution. The 64-bit machines were actually ordered by mistake a while back, never thought it would cause this sort of problem!

 

Does anyone have any ideas at all? It's driving me mad!

 

Thanks

[Steve21]

There was a fair few issues with the default 64bit wireless drivers, but shouldn't affect it between two routers. Would be worth updating all the drivers to the latest version to try it. (PC side, not router)

 

Steve

[synaesthesia]

Are they wireless clients or wired? They don't perchance have Atheros chipsets do they?

[DLAS]

Cheers for the responses guys,

 

They are wired clients, I don't believe the chipset is Atheros.

 

Off the top of my head I'd be guessing the NIC drivers are Broadcom. Could be wrong though, I was just looking to get some suggestions so when I go back to work on Tuesday I can work through them all. I didn't want to start troubleshooting it from scratch myself in case anybody had knowledge of something similar (or could point me to an area to start). I figured Draytek would have been able to help but they didn't come up with anything.

 

I'll look into slapping the latest drivers on the clients first thing on Tuesday.

Edited August 27, 2011 by DLAS

[m25man]

Whats providing your DHCP?

 

The Draytek or a local Server?

 

There is nothing your router would be able to do to your 64bit clients to make them BSOD.

 

As your client initialises the network stack it will broadcast for a DHCP address if the router returns a conflicting ip or other data I guess this could make the client throw it toys out of the pram.

 

I would look at this first before re-imaging systems...

[DLAS]

Whats providing your DHCP?

 

The Draytek or a local Server?

 

There is nothing your router would be able to do to your 64bit clients to make them BSOD.

 

As your client initialises the network stack it will broadcast for a DHCP

address if the router returns a conflicting ip or other data I guess this could make the client throw it toys out of the pram.

 

I would look at this first before re-imaging systems...

 

At the moment the Draytek is providing DHCP to the clients. Do 32 bit and 64 bit clients have significant differences in the initialisation of their networking info? It has to be router related - if I plug the crappy netgear back in (that was also acting as a dhcp server) everything works 100% as it should.

 

It may also be worth mentioning that it's not a BSOD exactly, it's just a lock up. The computer will boot until it get to the local login, it'll then lock up and freeze (before you can enter any credentials). The machine is then completely unresponsive, can only be revived with a hard reset.

 

 

Cheers

Edited August 27, 2011 by DLAS

[steve]

My initial thoughts are DHCP too.

 

Have you tired the 64-bit PCs with static IPs?

 

Do these machines have IPv6 installed? If so maybe try disabling that.

 

If booting a 64-bit PC with the network unplugged then plugged back in after a successful boot - what happens?

 

You could try using wireshark to monitor the network connection process.

[m25man]

Do you not have a local server or are all of these machines part of a peer to peer workdroup?

 

Your machines sound like they are hanging waiting for a network response from something they cannot find.

 

Check your Drayteks DHCP server configuration.

 

If your using Active Directory your AD DNS should be given to your clients via DHCP

If you have no internal AD DNS then set the Drayteks IP as the DNS Server for the clients that way they can resolve each other on the local lan rather than being directed upstream for something that should reside one switch port away.

 

In the LAN > General Setup > DNS Server IP Address - This has to be your internal DNS server or the IP of the Draytek.

 

Have you tried SafeMode with Networking?

[DLAS]

My initial thoughts are DHCP too.

 

Have you tired the 64-bit PCs with static IPs?

 

Do these machines have IPv6 installed? If so maybe try disabling that.

 

If booting a 64-bit PC with the network unplugged then plugged back in after a successful boot - what happens?

 

You could try using wireshark to monitor the network connection process.

 

I haven't tried using static IP addressing on the machines, I'll give that a go, thanks.

 

If I boot with no network cable, it boots up OK - then as soon as I plug the cable back in the computer just locks up, so it's not limited to locking up just on boot.

 

I've sent countless Wireshark logs to the Draytek support guys with no luck, everything seemed to be fairly normal.

 

Do you not have a local server or are all of these machines part of a peer to peer workdroup?

 

Your machines sound like they are hanging waiting for a network response from something they cannot find.

 

Check your Drayteks DHCP server configuration.

 

If your using Active Directory your AD DNS should be given to your clients via DHCP

If you have no internal AD DNS then set the Drayteks IP as the DNS Server for the clients that way they can resolve each other on the local lan rather than being directed upstream for something that should reside one switch port away.

 

In the LAN > General Setup > DNS Server IP Address - This has to be your internal DNS server or the IP of the Draytek.

 

Have you tried SafeMode with Networking?

 

There is no local server on this network (yet).

 

I can try setting the DNS as the Draytek on one of the clients and see how that works.

 

The machines all work 100% fine in safe mode with networking... I've tried disabling all manner of combinations of services to see if that helped but I couldn't get a configuration that worked.

[m25man]

As you have no local DNS the Draytek must act as a DNS Proxy make sure that your clients are getting the IP of the Draytek as their DNS Server.

 

Also in safe mode with networking can you try disabling IP V6

 

I have found that in the absence of a windows network Vista and Win7 64 bit clients still insist on trying to set up an IP6 stack could this be what is hanging your 64 bit boxes?

[DLAS]

I'll try disabling IPv6 and see how that works.

 

Thanks for all the responses so far, as you can imagine this is giving me a real headache!

 

If anyone has any other ideas feel free to chip in, I'll get back to you all on Tuesday and let you know how I get on.

[downloadkid]

I remember something similar to this with some Dell machines a while back - i dont remember the detail but it was to do with the fact the DHCP requests were being sanctioned before the NIC was initialised - or course it was a driver issue but you could change the sttings on the card - basically it times out. I'm sorry I can't be of anymore help - getting old memory failing!!!!!!

[DLAS]

Thanks for all of the help guys.

 

I've had some time to play around and it seems it was a DHCP issue. Disabling IPv6 did nothing by itself but when I statically assigned the IP and DNS the problem went away. Looking into how I can fix it without having to statically assign an IP on each computer on the network but at least I can get the machines working now.

 

So big thanks once again!