Permanent disconnects on Win7 machine

[Skeeve]

Hi,

since I switched to my new windows 7 machine I get disconnected every 1-5 minutes. It happens extremely often especially when I start firefox while FF XI still runs in window mode or when the FF XI window is deactiavted (not the foreground window). FF XI seems to be the only application with this problem so far.

It cannot be a router problem, because I'm using the same router since 5 years, and the game was running fine on my old computer with the same router.

Any advice or help? Does anybody else have similar problems?

Thanks in advance for support,
best regards,
Skeeve.

------------------------------------------------
Intel i5-2500K @3.3 GHz
Asus P8-H67-M Pro
Realtek Onboard LanAdapter
Win 7 Home Premium (32Bit) SP1

[RAIST]

hmmm....wonder if something is tripping a GPU reset somehow. Maybe Aero or Aero-Peek feature is causing a problem. Is the crash only happening when you switch to another application? Or is it just crashing after you play for a whileand keeping the focus on the FFXI window (not switching to another app, no virusscan update popup, or anything like that that would take focus away from FFXI window)?

If it is happening in line with a zone change, might be worth it to check your firewall/security logs to make sure one of the new IP's isn't getting blocked somehow (if you run something like peerblocker it might be quietly blocking an SE IP so you aren't catching it).

[Skeeve]

Hi Raist,

thanks a lot for your reply.

It's not a crash - just a disconnect. So when you watch the numbers in the upper left corner, R (Receive) flips to zero and then the percentage counter drops down within ~ 1 min to zero too. Then you'll be disconnected. After R is zero you can do nothing to stop this process - at least I wasn't successful with everything I tried so far:)

SE support told me to shut down my firewall and it seems indeed related to this, cause I'm using now a different one. (New: GData / Old: Windows firewall). I'll post my findings once this is running stable for 1 or 2 weeks, so maybe this can help others with the same problems.

Anyway, thanks a lot for assistance.

Best regards,
Skeeve

[RAIST]

Yeah.. I use local firewalls too...had to add exceptions for SE's IP's. I forget all the numbers for them, but some come up with registered DNS names, and are easy to spot in the logs if they get blocked--they'll be something like ffxi001.pol.com, dns1.square-enix.com, or something like that. Others aren't registered with DNS names, but may show up as UDP traffic in the 124.150.152.1 to 124.150.152.255 range. SE leases that block, so you can whitelist that range if you start seeing a lot of hits in that range. So far, I've only seen a few of them show up in that range in my logs...just added that subnet for good measure the last time one of them gave me problems.

DNS/ARIN lookups on the IP's:

Using 0 day old cached answer (or, you can get fresh results).
Hiding E-mail address (you can get results with the E-mail address).

% [whois.apnic.net node-3]
% Whois data copyright terms http://www.apnic.net/db/dbcopyright.html

inetnum: 124.150.152.0 - 124.150.159.255
netname: SQUARE
descr: SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.
descr: Shinjuku Bunka Quint Bldg.
descr: 3-22-7 Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-8544,Japan
country: JP
admin-c: JNIC1-AP
tech-c: JNIC1-AP
status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE
remarks: Email address for spam or abuse complaints *******@square-enix.com
changed: **********@apnic.net 20090818
mnt-by: MAINT-JPNIC
mnt-lower: MAINT-JPNIC
source: APNIC

role: Japan Network Information Center
address: Kokusai-Kougyou-Kanda Bldg 6F, 2-3-4 Uchi-Kanda
address: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0047, Japan
country: JP
phone: +81-3-5297-2311
fax-no: +81-3-5297-2312
e-mail: **********@nic.ad.jp
admin-c: JI13-AP
tech-c: JE53-AP
nic-hdl: JNIC1-AP
mnt-by: MAINT-JPNIC
changed: **********@apnic.net 20041222
changed: **********@apnic.net 20050324
changed: ********@nic.ad.jp 20051027
source: APNIC

inetnum: 124.150.152.0 - 124.150.159.255
netname: SQUARE-CIDR-BLK-JP
descr: SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.
remarks: Email address for spam or abuse complaints : *******@square-enix.com
country: JP
admin-c: MT10731JP
tech-c: JP00011953
tech-c: TM16287JP
remarks: This information has been partially mirrored by APNIC from
remarks: JPNIC. To obtain more specific information, please use the
remarks: JPNIC WHOIS Gateway at
remarks: http://www.nic.ad.jp/en/db/whois/en-gateway.html or
remarks: whois.nic.ad.jp for WHOIS client. (The WHOIS client
remarks: defaults to Japanese output, use the /e switch for English
remarks: output)
changed: *********@nic.ad.jp 20090818
source: JPNIC