[Pan-users] Re: downloads stalling out

[Duncan]

Jeff Berman <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on 
Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:58:10 -0700:

> I think what is happening is that pan is grabbing articles so rapidly that
> it's causing my old Linksys router to freak out.  Some time ago Cox
> Communications apparently updated their network, which caused similar
> symptoms (intermittent loss of Internet access) at my dad's house.  He
> talked to both Cox and Linksys technicians, but I'm a little fuzzy on what
> the outcome was.  (Some statements were made about the hardware not being
> able to keep up with Cox's speed, but I couldn't get anything more
> detailed than that.)
> 
> I haven't done enough research yet to totally warrant this email, but I
> did once remove my router from the network and then pan downloaded
> everything without a hitch.  Is it possible that pan could be doing
> something to disrupt communications?

Fellow Cox user here! =8^)  Cox-Phoenix (ph.ph.cox.net).  From a
host-lookup and trace on the IP in your headers it looks like you are
Cox-Oklahoma City (oc.oc.cox.net)?

You don't mention what model of Linksys router you have, but Darren's
correct, if it's an old generation model, it's quite likely it indeed can't
keep up with the higher speeds Cox has been upgrading to.  While their WAN
port was 10Mbit Ethernet, the router's CPU bogs down on the WAN/LAN NAPT
and can't reliably handle more than about half that.  (Ideally, it'd
handle about 80% of that or 8Mbit, there's some overhead in Ethernet
itself.)  If you are using a wireless connection likewise, but due to the
unreliability of wireless rather than shear router CPU overloading.

Fortunately, while I'm still using a first generation broadband router
myself, it's a Netgear (rt314, OEM'ed Xyzel (sp) p314), and has proven
itself somewhat more robust than the comparable generation Linksys units. 
As with the first generation units in general, it cost me about $200 new
IIRC, but the thing keeps going.  Still, Phoenix is 6Mbit standard
service, 9Mbit premium, and were I to upgrade to premium, I expect the
bottleneck would be the router and I'd have to upgrade it.  When that time
comes, there's a very good chance I'll go Linksys WRT style (whether
actual Linksys or not), and run third party Linux based firmware.  (The
other alternative I'm looking at is to simply buy a low end computer and
use it as a dedicated router, giving me more flexibility than even the
for-purpose router appliances running DD-WRT or the like.)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman