Posted on 12/20/2005 5:39:17 PM PST by Perdogg
Whenever I delete something from my email or adjust the settings on google, I get this very obnoxious beeping sound instead my regular sound. This also happens when I adjust the volume or receive a "message" from the microsoft game channel.
Any suggestions?
Sorry to butt in here, but Hodar is right. Try his experiment, I think you'll find ZA is kinda like towing a camper.
I always wanted a camper...just not that kind. :)
I've been running some broadband speed tests; did about 3 different website tests. Not much difference at all in the download speeds with ZA or without ZA.
But the real shocker here is the result of the speed test: the highest was only 1.8 Mps.
That is very slow for a RoadRunner modem. As I said, my desktop usually averaged 2.8, and that was months ago before RR upgraded their speeds (they said).
Is it because of going through a router that laptop connection speeds are always going to be slower than a desktop??
Can't figure this out. My desktop CPU was only AMD 1.1
Ghz. This laptop has AMD 1.6, so thought it would be slightly faster. It also has more RAM.
So guess it's just the fact of going through the router that slows it down, is that right?
I'll still try the ZA experiment...just wanted to get an idea of my laptop download speed. No wonder I thought it was slower! I'm disappointed.
I might answer my own question....
Just read at a computer forum that using WEP on routers can cause a slow down in speed sometimes between 20%-50%.
No wonder I'm having problems.
Guess my choice is: faster speeds (without WEP) or greater protection (with WEP)
Duh, I missed that. There's really no need for you to have Zone Alarm then. Just a good anti-virus and spyware program will do.
I also have the Linksys Wireless G with speedbooster, and am very pleased with it. Tech support isn't great, but they do have a nifty program that is downloadable that will help get the router up and running if you run into problems.
Whatever you do, do NOT buy a Belkin router. I initially bought a Belkin Wireless G, and after 3 replacements, I switched to Linksys. I should have suspected a major problem when they willingly kept replacing my dead routers.
Oops - wrong thread.
Turn your speakers off. You won't hear a thing.
These are good questions, and I can tell you put some thought into these. I'll be delighted to answer them the best that I can.
When you connect through Wireless; you are sacrificing network speed for convenience. If you have an 802.11g; you will be limited to 54 MB/sec. Now, I want to caution you here... There is an 8x difference between Mb (megabit) and MB (megabyte). A Byte is made up of 8 bits, thus 80Mb = 10 MB. The case of the 'b' deteremines whether you are flipping a single '1' or a set of eight (8) 1's.
The internet is SLOW (about 1% of your network speed), compared to your network. Why is a home network so much faster? Well, if you have a small business, you want to move date from desktop 'A' to desktop 'B' really FAST. So, it's not unusual to see computers talk to each other in the 50 MB range, yet only see the internet in the 0-500kB/second range. Another reason for this is that in the not too distant future, you may want to Stream a downloaded movie from you PC to your HDTV; and with an 802.11g modem, you can stream HDTV content to your HDTV in another room .... without cables; while your spouse surfs the web, and your kids play their playstation on your home network. This will 'bog' down an 802.11g network a wee bit; but it should be able to work just fine.
However, the next version of wireless Routers coming next year (802.11n) will be able to stream 6 HDTV's individual content, whilst surfing the net, having the kiddies and their friends have a Quake-fest; while printing web pages from your laptop ... but I digress.
If you were to use BitTorrent (that is bad, and I would never encourage you to download movies, music, programs, and other neat stuff; becauser that would be wrong, naughty and nasty); you would see how badly ZA is holding you back. The analogy of towing a camper is a very good one.
Like I indicated earlier, your Router is doing everything ZoneAlarm does, and more. ZoneAlarm is simply wasting cycles on your computers.
www.modemspeedtest.com is one site in which you can do some bandwidth testing. Bear in mind a couple of things. First off, a CableModem is a SHARED resource. Roadrunner says that the resource has a total of 'x' MB/sec available; how much of it you see is dependant upon how many Roadrunner customers are sharing that resource. Now, I'm in the Austin area; and if I find that my roadrunner account is below some specified number, I can call Roadrunner (sincerely recommend using the RR Chat) and they can 'ping' your machine from the corporate office.
Now, because cable is SHARED, it's very important to CHAT with them when things are slow. If you call in and complain, they will send a tech out between 8-5 (when everyone is at work) and he'll say that things look fine. What you want to do is get a LIVE CHAT going with www.rr.com and have them PING your machine. If the value is below some set threshold, they will send someone to your area and put you on a different network. If they have your network with 1,500 subscibers, and you whine; they may move your PC to a network with 20 subscribers. This is cool. Alternatively, if you have Dishnetwork (like I do) they remove the filters from the cable (which block HBO, ect) thus allowing your cablemodem to communicate on multiple frequencies that would otherwise be blocked by the filter.
Regarding AMD and chip speeds. Intel started the myth that performance is tied to MHz. This is like saying that your car's performance should be compared to your engine's RPM. It's a bogus arguement, because your car's performance is NOT dictated by your car's RPM alone. The RPM of your car's engine may impact how fast you go; but comparing a 4 cyl engine at 10,000 RPM to a V8 at 6,000 RPM is insane.
The AMD processors tend to do more 'things' per clock cycle than Intel processors. Thus, an AMD running at 2.8 MHz may acutally outperform an Intel processor running at 3.4 MHz. Bragging about frequency alone is an arguement for an uninformed user. If I said my car can hit 8,000 RPM; you'd say "Oh, goodie for you"; because it means next to nothing. Same thing with MHz.
The ROUTER will NOT slow you down. The ROUTER is about 100x FASTER than the internet. Again, we are comparing 54 MB/s = 54,000 KB/sec bandwidth on your home network; with downloading files over the internet a peak of 500 KB/sec. 500 - 600 KB is rare; but you 'may' see happen from time to time.
Thus, 54,000 / 500 = 108; thus if there is a bottleneck; it ain't your ROUTER.
What does ZoneAlarm really 'do', and what does a Modem 'do'? If you go to START ->RUN and type in the word 'cmd' (no apostrophe); you'll see a DOS window pop up. Now type in the phase 'ipconfig /all' (again, without apostrophes).
This will list all of the ethernet information your PC needs to identify you to the world. Of interest is your MAC Address; this is also called your PHYSICAL Address. Each and every ethernet device in the world has a unique number. There are TRILLIONS of available numbers, so you can have your very own, and I have mine. These numbers identify YOUR machine from any other machine on a network.
Now, a network gives an addess to everyone, Roadrunner may call you 70.123.45.120. All of your web requests will 'KNOW' that they go to this address; and so do the hackers. ZoneAlarm and a ROUTER do something neat. ZoneAlarm BLOCKS web transfers from addresses you did not first contact. However, if you initate a transfer with a HACKER, ZoneAlarm will think this is a valid transfer and won't intercept (unless ZoneAlarm KNOWS this to be a illegal website; then it will prevent you from initating contact). This requires ZA to monitor EVERY portion of EVERY internet transfer, even one's that are on the RoadRunner network and are not addressed to you. This chews up a LOT of CPU cycles.
A Router PRETENDS to be you. The Router simply says "I'm going to GIVE you a sub-address, beneath the address RoadRunner gave you". Like receiving mail from IBM's mailroom instead of your public mailbox. It's not enough to contact IBM, they have to KNOW you SPECIFICALLY for the message to get through. The ROUTER has BILLIONS of bogus addresses available, you are hidden somewhere with the correct address. Thus, a hacker has to not only guess your RoadRunner IP address (this gets him to your ROUTER), he then has to guess which address your router has assigned you (out of the billions of combinations).
Meanwhile, your Router is checking to see if you initiated contact with this site; and yes, it has a built in log file to do this, and if the request isn't valid; it's rejected. Furthermore, one way to check addresses is to 'PING' an address. A PING means you send a 32 bit packet to an address, and request the recient respond back with the packet. We measure the time for this transfer to take place, and we can determine the speed of the networks. However, a PING tells a hacker that someone lives there. ROUTERS can be told to ignore PINGS, so when an automated routine PINGS randome addresses, the ROUTER responds the same way as a bad address responds.
Hope this helps some more.
Well, all I can say is you're either a teacher or a writer or both.
That was a very enjoyable and interesting (besides very informative) explanation of many things. If you're not a teacher/writer, you should be.
When I have more time tonight I want to reread, run ipconfig, etc., and really learn each detail of all you talked about in your post.
Oh, and by the way, I checked my router settings last night, and it's actually set for WPA - Shared Key. Don't know why I thought we (the rep and I) had set it for WEP, maybe at first we did.
But after reading your post, neither WEP or WPA affect downloading speeds anyway, if I understood correctly.
Thanks for the info. I may be back with more questions! This is a good learning experience (and probably not just for me....)
Nah, I'm just a silly engineer with a juvenile need to show off.
The WEP or WPA are just security settings for the wireless. Either should be adequate for the home user. And you are correct in that either setting will have virtually no effect on your download speeds. They just establish a security wall to prevent unauthorized PC's from jumping in on your network.
Atari For Dummies.
"However, a PING tells a hacker that someone lives there. ROUTERS can be told to ignore PINGS, "
How do you tell a router to ignore pings? And is there ever a case where you would want the router to receive pings?
(thanks)
I am too, but we're going to counseling and we're going to resolve our differences.
Further to b4its2late. Goto control panel and set your audio settings to default.
It the problem persists you probably have a corrupted audio codec.
Update all your audio and video drivers or run Semantec Win Doctor.
Failing that unplug your speakers and get headphones. Default audio cues are useless and down right annoying.
Depending upon the Router (brand, firmware, model, ect) this option is found on the Router's private web page. For example, you could type in '192.168.1.1' and you may get a webpage, even though your Router is not connected to the internet.
This webpage 'lives' in the Router. This is how you configure the Router, you tell it that you are living here, and that it should look for a particular type of internet connection (Static IP Address, Dynamic, ect, ect), and under security you can tell the router to either respond to PINGS, or not.
If/When you call Roadrunner to complain about your bandwidth, they can do a couple dozen PINGs, and get an average of how fast you are responding. From this, they can get an idea of how much bandwidth you have available on your SHARED resource. If you have the PING option turned off, RoadRunner won't be able to 'see' you. Thus, they can't help you.
On the other hand, Hackers write software that goes looking for users, the most useful tool in their arsenal is the PING command. If someone responds, there is something there. If I blindfold you (and you have PERFECT memory, like a PC), you can take your finger and jab in the air. After a couple million jabs, you'll have mapped the inside of my house. You'd know where doors, windows, drawers, countes, sinks, showers, pictures ect, are all located. If you jabbed and hit empty air, no wall. Jab and hit a wall, from there you jab 1 inch higher and lower, and you map my home. Hackers do a similar thing; and can tell what make/model computer lives at a particular address (IBM RS400, Novel Server, Intel 486sx with a 5 Gig hard drive, ect).
By denying responses to a PING, you are denying the hacker a valuable tool; kinda like burning the #$*& out of the blindfolded person's finger. Essentially, no response is the same thing as having a bogus IP address; if they can't initiate ANYTHING, there is no reason to keep on trying at that address.
But, and this is the cool part, say the KNEW for sure that you lived there. The ROUTERs sole purpose in life is to confound their attempts to get past it. The ROUTER is designed in hardware to ONLY allow someone to get into it's configuration web page, while connected to the router and with a simple password. They can hack all day long; the router acts like a PC without a hard drive. The Route is incapable of accepting a hacked program/worm/virus/trojan, for it has no where to store it.
Just 10 short years ago, that $25 Router would have cost you over $2,500 and up. Progress is good.
"They can hack all day long; the router acts like a PC without a hard drive. The Route is incapable of accepting a hacked program/worm/virus/trojan, for it has no where to store it."
Sounds like a router is worth its weight in gold!
What I don't understand is how then are hackers EVER able (which they are) to get through routers of large or small corporations and shut them down with a worm?
Routers are worth their weight in gold. Thankfully, Routers are relatively light; and are available at bargain basement prices. TomsHardware.com ran some reviews, comparing chipsets of different Routers, and the difference between the best and worst were within 0.8%; so essentially all Routers work about the same. Your locks on your home will not keep a DETERMINED burglar out. It will keep honest people honest, it may deter the regular thug; but a professional is going to walk right in. Same thing with your car alarm; if a Pro wants in, he'll get in. It may cause him some risk and inconvenience; but it won't stop him. Large corporations get hacked, 99.9% of the times because of a stupid user. For example, a user takes his laptop home with him and surfs the porn sites (rife with spyware, virus, worms, ect); or he disables the anti-virus stuff and reads his emsil (with virus's attached from various hackers), or he lets his kids use his work laptop to chat on AOL; and someone sends his kid an application that says "Check this out". You get the drift; this user than connects his infected machien back into the work network; and the VIRUS initiates a call to download whatever 'Payload' the virus is designed to unleash. The virus now has bypassed the company's ROUTERS, as it initiated the contact from the user side of the firewall; the company Routers believe this to be a legitimate
Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation.
Interesting too about there being practically no difference in quality among routers. Good to know.
I still say you should consider writing a book...maybe on the A+ Certification, or even write for Cisco.
(And I'll probably be back with more questions...)
I've been doing more reading at tech forums tonight. Someone mentioned that bloggers can see who visits their sites, mentioned stat counter programs, etc. Even shows the IP address, city/state. I went to a counter website and saw the demo, and it did do all of that.
That's a little scary. Hopefully, those programs don't show network names or SSID'S, do they?
No, what you saw was the ID that RoadRunner/AOL/Time Warner assigned to your ROUTER. As I mentioned earlier, your Router then assigned you another number that no one else knows about.
Hence, my statment that a person who has broadband and does not use a Router is a fool.
Bear in mind, that MOST (not all, but 99.9%) of the ISP's use something called Dynamic IP. This means that today you may have the address 73.126.2.23 and in 10 minutes your lease on that number will expire. Your PC will be assigned a new address; say 73.126.2.75 for the next window of 48 hours. Then that lease will expire and you'll be assigned another number.
Why? Because, an ISP has a LOT of users; but a finite number of IP numbers to work with. The odds are nearly 100% that 100% of the users will be online at the same time. If you had a FIXED IP address, that number would be reserved whether you were online and working, or basking on the upper deck of a cruise ship in the Carribean (upper level by the second smoke stack, naturally).
By Dynamically moving your address; you are consitently re-addressed; and the sytem automatically forwards your IP requests for about 5 minuts. Then, you are 'lost' in the shuffle. Only your ISP knows where you have been assigned, and where you are right "NOW".
Now, if you did not have a Router (aka Firewall) and you got a virus, Worm or Trojan uploaded without your knowledge, this worm could scour your machine for any internet purchases you made and possibly forward your credit card number. This type of virus is old news; and if you are running almost ANY kind of anti-virus software, you should be safe. The firewall (aka Router) automatically takes 90% of the risk away, just by sitting there on your desk and flashing it's lights at you.
Sorry to take so long to get back to you; I was basking in the 80 degree weather in Corpus Christi. This is MY kind of Christmas break. Sun, surf, bikinis, 80+ degrees and calm skies. You are welcome to all of the white stuff you want; I'll take my ice in a glass, thank you.
Back to the Router, about the only type of attack you are vulnerable to, is opening an email attachement from someone; and running it. Unless that person knows the program to be clean, and you have verbally confirmed that the program is from this person; do not ever run any program, from anyone you do not know, that was written by some person/company you have not heard of.
Hope you had a Merry Christmas, and have a safe and Happy New Year. Off to join my better half in the Hot Tub....
Well, after all these question/answer sessions, I sure do like my router a lot better. Thanks again for the clear and interestingly-written information.
I still think you should write for Cisco (maybe you do already....)
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