dmccall
join:2009-03-12
| 7008BR Crashes: I'm out of ideas
With a very erratic pattern, my router spontaneously drops all connections and flashes all connection lights in unison (about 2 blinks per second). When this happens, none of the computers on the network can connect to each other, the router's setup page, or any internet web pages. When this crash is not occurring, the network works extremely well. Here are some important points and discoveries:
• This was happening with my 8-year old SMC BRN7008 router (Firmware R1.95c). I replaced it with a Linksys WBR-1310(RevB) with 2.02 firmware and the same exact behavior occurs.
• I have two switches: GigaFast EZ800-S and Linksys DES-1108(A2). When I test with the SMC router, I only connect one switch. When I test with the Linksys router, I have to use both switches. I have rotated these switches using every combination, but the problem still occurs.
• When this behavior occurs, the only way to bring the system back to normal is to power cycle the router. Unplugging Cat5 cables does not correct the situation.
• This has occurred with each computer unplugged individually.
• All computers report only small nuisance findings with AVG AntiVirus Free, WIndows Defender, SpyBot Search and Destroy and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.
• Not convinced by the malware scanner results, I simultaneously swiped every single computer on the network. As I was completing the Windows XP updates, the router crashed.
• The behavior occurs whether I have massive data transfers or not, and occurs whether or not the data transfers are occurring locally or downloading from the internet. There is no one thing I can do to trigger this problem.
• The only hardware that has not been changed or wiped clean of software is the cabling and the Motorola SB5100 Cable Modem connected to Road Runner in Raleigh. I have nottried running the network for hours with no WAN connected.
• I have wireless access, UPnP, DMZ, Virtual servers, and Packet filtering all turned off. There are no special ports open, no ports forwarded, etc. (I don't really know enough about setting this up)
• Because the Linksys requires power cycling for recovery, I'm not able to see its log after this occurs (power cycle deletes the log).
Questions
? Could the Road Runner connection be supplying a DoS attack down to the router?
? Could a switch cause the router to be bombed by echoing nonsense up to the router?
? I fear that malware is phoning home, but since this happened after a clean wipe and installation of XP SP3 + updates, I pretty much rule this out.
? Could both routers be bad?
The logs for this router are not showing anything but the initial handshakes by each computer on the network.
What tests would you run now?
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