Hi guys, I hope you lovely people will once again help me out with a little problem that I can't be arsed to google for (that's a joke, that's what I normally do)!

My connection is, as you would expect, usually pretty reliable. However, I've noticed that after exiting eMule my connection goes haywire. I have to reset the modem, then the router, then reboot, but even after that my connection is really poor. I use the "Obfuscation" feature of eMule and suspect that might be to blame. Can someone point me in the right direction as to what the problem may be? Sometimes it's fine, but other times it just doesn't connect, for example, here's a trace route on bbc.co.uk:


Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.253.67]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 82.33.48.248
2 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms 10.25.0.1
3 11 ms 9 ms 7 ms osr01stav-v11.network.virginmedia.net [62.30.65.
1]
4 11 ms 11 ms 8 ms osr02azte-tenge71.network.virginmedia.net [195.1
88.230.73]
5 8 ms 7 ms 11 ms 80.1.242.65
6 58 ms 11 ms 10 ms 213.105.175.161
7 11 ms 12 ms 13 ms nth-bb-a-as4-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.1
85.105]
8 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms 62.253.185.118
9 15 ms 16 ms 15 ms tele-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.
184.2]
10 15 ms 15 ms 16 ms pos6-1.rt0.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.237]
11 15 ms 16 ms 15 ms 212.58.238.153
12 17 ms 15 ms 14 ms te12-1.hsw1.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.234]
13 16 ms 15 ms 16 ms www-vip.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.253.67]

Trace complete.



Looking at that again, it seems the first hop only took 8ms, but on screen that took about 25 second to appear.

A-ha! I think I've answered the question myself having written that! It's as I suspected the other day, it must be my AV software (CA ezTrust, which I think has erroneously installed itself twice, one of which has recently expired!).

Sorry about laying out my thought processes there, but if you've read this far, do you have any ideas where I should direct my attention or am I on the right track?

Thanks very much, peace to you all.

Make sure that eMule isn't opening too many connections at once - it can freak some (especially cheap) routers out - it's in the eMule control panel somewhere.

Also, if you're running XP, you should apply LevlLord's TCP/IP patch which increases the number of 'half open' TCP connections that the OS can make at once.

Nice one Sribble, I know I can rely on you, but I must say you are speedy tonight!! Thank you

Judging by what you're getting at i.e. too many connections, I guess you think eMule is the problem and it's not AV/shell related (it was the pause in returning the tracert to my screen despite the times shown that got me worrying about that)?

I'm not sure I understand how too many open connections will stop the resolution of a DNS name so intermittently, would you be kind enough to explain?

Thanks sincerely once again.

e2a: maybe I should check out what a 'half-open' connection is before you spend your time answering me!!

I don't see how your AV could be interfering with your 'net connection and DNS resolution unless it was also acting as some sort of software firewall as well.

There's no need for software firewalls with all versions of Win after XP SP2, as the built-in Windows Firewall is perfectly adequate (well - as much as a software firewall can be ).

Its also that your symptoms sound very typical of where P2P apps open too many connections at once - you can check the Event Log for 'EventID 4226: TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts' too see if this has been happening.

Sometimes it just freaks the router out - cheaper ones have hardly any memory, and the large number of simultaneous connections soon flood and overload it's internal tables.

If you think your DNS resolution is awry - try OpenDNS instead for a while - it might well offer better service than Virgin's DNS servers.