Be Internet- Connection Issues with Source Games

Dreadhead · 19 Oct 2009 at 09:45

Hello Folks.

Has anyone else had any connection issues with Be's 24mbps service and games such as Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2?

I am calling them up tonight but thought I would ask on here first.

Basically my line is normally fine, rarely needing to resync unless I load up one of the afore mentioned games. Often when playing L4D especially, the game will tell me there is a connection error and boot me off the server.
Often the modem looses the connection completely and I have to power cycle it to get the internet restored.

It strikes me as odd that it is source games that tend to instigate this rather than just general use/downloading.

I am using the standard Be Box which came with the package, a Thompson router iirc.

Thanks

markyb · 19 Oct 2009 at 11:22

I'm with BE and am using the Thomson router. Try turning the Thomspson firewall of just to test. I've had a couple of issues with COD4 on the PS3 which have seemed to be down to the firewall.

I've had a couple of boot outs of TF2 when I first got my box but everything seems ok now. I was playing TF2 the other day with a ping of 20. I'm on a 2.5mb connection with Fast path enabled.

Azuse05 · 19 Oct 2009 at 11:27

V7 of that little box running the beta firmware, bridged to a wrt54gl and no issues at all, although the firewall is disabled for obvious reasons. Actually it syncs faster and more stably bridged, makes my old dg834gt look slow

General use/downloading is almost certainly all tcp, source games are all udp so try firing up something like skype and see if the same problem is there.

Hutchy · 19 Oct 2009 at 11:29

I have used a netgear DG834G and GT on Be* for quite a long while now with little to no problems.

As the above poster says, I would look at your current router set up as that is most likely to be the culprit.

markyb · 19 Oct 2009 at 11:33

Hutchy said:
I have used a netgear DG834G and GT on Be* for quite a long while now with little to no problems.

As the above poster says, I would look at your current router set up as that is most likely to be the culprit.

Hutchy,

To get your Netgear 834G router working with BE did you have to call BE to allow to use your own router (*I'm sure I've heard this) or are there a number of settings you have to change?

My 834G sync'd with the server but never was issued a IP. "LCP Down"

dave_beast · 19 Oct 2009 at 11:33

I've got the Thompson Speetouch 780 on Be*, no issues with any games or Xbox live, but I always run with the routers firewall off.

z0mbi3 · 19 Oct 2009 at 11:38

I had this same problem. It's the router and it's lack of resources.

By any chance do you have port forwarding setup and upnp enabled? disabling upnp should see you right for awhile but ultimatley you'll need to pick up a better router.

I made a thread about this a couple of months ago, I'll see if I can dig it out for you.

edit: Well now that I've said that I can't find the thread. I'll keep digging though. Basically I was finding that when joining TF2 servers it was always failing on the first attempt from when I first opened the program (loading bar would be almost full and just sit there). Second attempt it would join pretty much straight away, regardless of it being the same server or not. Now I could get around this by manually entering some rules on the firewall that I found on the Be* wiki page. The trouble is that I was having a bigger issue where anywhere from 10 mins to 2 hours into a game I was losing the connection to the server, and the thomson router was doing a warm reboot/resync.

Turned out I could delay the warm reboot by disabling upnp, but eventually it would happen again and I really needed upnp for other devices on my network. So it was a choice of disable upnp and lose some network functionality and not even solve the problem fully, just live with the random reboots, or pick up one of the netgears everyone goes on about. In the end I caved and got the netgear dg834gt and haven't looked back since.

Azuse05 · 19 Oct 2009 at 11:52

Tbh that would make sense, as a modem is fantastically stable, but ask it to do two things at once and you're lucky it doesn't explode.

What happens if you open steam, view servers (turn off all filters) and hit refresh? How does it handle those connections?

Dreadhead · 19 Oct 2009 at 14:06

Hi all,

Thanks for the responses so far. I will have a further look when I get home and check the firewall is turned off.

Typically Skype gives me no issues, and I use a dedicated skype phone as well as a client installed on my rig.

@Azuse05 I actually have an old wrt54g (i think it's an 's' rather than an 'l') sat in the loft. I may try to attach that if you think it increases performance. Would it involve switching the wireless off on the BeBox and using the bridging options to share the connection with it?

Other than these connection issues the line is great. I get pings of 6 on some servers!!!

Azuse05 · 19 Oct 2009 at 14:43

Bridge and turn the firewall, wireless etc off. Almost anything will have improved performance over the bexox, it's really only ment to get people up and running/browsing. How much will depend on the version though, v1-4 will take tomato, 5-7.2 it's linksys or ddwrt (prob. linksys, 2mb rom isn't great).

z0mbi3 · 19 Oct 2009 at 14:48

Azuse05 said:
Bridge and turn the firewall, wireless etc off. Almost anything will have improved performance over the bexox, it's really only ment to get people up and running/browsing. How much will depend on the version though, v1-4 will take tomato, 5-7.2 it's linksys or ddwrt (prob. linksys, 2mb rom isn't great).

I forgot to say getting an independant router was another option, but seeing as I didn't already have a spare one I decided to go for the all in one solution. Either way will work.

Dreadhead · 19 Oct 2009 at 15:01

So just to confirm, I pass the connection through the BeBox to the linksys router making sure all the added funtionality is turned off on the BeBox, and then connect all my clients to the wrtgs rather than the be box?

I have version 7 wrtgs I believe, I remember trying to install Tomato before and hitting a brick wall.

z0mbi3 · 19 Oct 2009 at 15:43

Dreadhead said:
So just to confirm, I pass the connection through the BeBox to the linksys router making sure all the added funtionality is turned off on the BeBox, and then connect all my clients to the wrtgs rather than the be box?

I have version 7 wrtgs I believe, I remember trying to install Tomato before and hitting a brick wall.

Yep

Azuse05 · 19 Oct 2009 at 16:15

When you set it to bridged it just becomes a simple modem passing the signal from phone line to whatever router you attach, which controls the lan.

The GS v7 doesn't run linux which is why tomato won't work, and it only has 2meg rom so you're limited to either the official firmware or dd-wrt micro. There some screen shots of that here.

Nocky24 · 19 Oct 2009 at 16:34

I had this problem and was trying to work it out the weekend. I'm on o2 and it seems like a lot of o2/BE/BT customers are having the same issues especially with left 4 dead after the new crash course update. I just basically assigned 'steam games' to my pcs reserved ip address in the router's device section, i seriously didn't think it would work as it seems too simple, but its been working the last two days now- no more drop outs in left 4 dead! By the way i'm using the wireless II box with the latest firmware (7.4.20.5).

Hutchy · 19 Oct 2009 at 16:40

markyb said:
Hutchy,

To get your Netgear 834G router working with BE did you have to call BE to allow to use your own router (*I'm sure I've heard this) or are there a number of settings you have to change?

My 834G sync'd with the server but never was issued a IP. "LCP Down"

On my netgears I spoofed the MAC Address of the be there router.

I believe that you don't actually need to do that anymore and your new router will let itself online within 10 minutes or so after installing a new one.

If you check the Be* forums I'm sure someone will have stickied the post on the matter somewhere.

Dreadhead · 19 Oct 2009 at 18:04

Azuse05 said:
When you set it to bridged it just becomes a simple modem passing the signal from phone line to whatever router you attach, which controls the lan.

The GS v7 doesn't run linux which is why tomato won't work, and it only has 2meg rom so you're limited to either the official firmware or dd-wrt micro. There some screen shots of that here.

Ok, thanks for the info.

Would I see any tangible benefit from changing the firmware over to dd-wrt micro?

Just going to dig out the router now

Dreadhead · 19 Oct 2009 at 18:04

Nocky24 said:
I had this problem and was trying to work it out the weekend. I'm on o2 and it seems like a lot of o2/BE/BT customers are having the same issues especially with left 4 dead after the new crash course update. I just basically assigned 'steam games' to my pcs reserved ip address in the router's device section, i seriously didn't think it would work as it seems too simple, but its been working the last two days now- no more drop outs in left 4 dead! By the way i'm using the wireless II box with the latest firmware (7.4.20.5).

Thanks for the tip, I have however forwarded all my ports.

Nocky24 · 19 Oct 2009 at 18:13

Dreadhead said:
Thanks for the tip, I have however forwarded all my ports.

Ah right :/ is there no preset application forwarding options then on the firewall page? I know theres apps like steam games, world of warcraft, various torrents, etc that you can assign to the ip/device you're using.

Dreadhead · 19 Oct 2009 at 18:41

Yep, I've checked, all the ports are correctly forwarded. Still have the issue though. Ill try the other router now.