Captivate and Our Home Network

Hello Pam,

I would hate to imply that Captivate might be causing your router to shut off access to the internet, but its one that needs to be investigated. Most routers have a log on them. Take a look a that. You may need to increase the level of logging that is happening before this sort of information would be recorded.

Also, when this happens, does your network heartbeat flash at a really fast rate? The network heartbeat is the flashing lights on your network card. Take a look at how fast it normally flashes without Captivate running, then launch Captivate to see if it increases dramatically, or even becomes a solidly lit light.

Hopefully this information, along with the information TPK is requesting, will allow us to help you further.

Hi Pam,

Here are the general settings for my router: These are pretty standard.

IP Address: Supplied by the ISP distribution node
DHCP Server: Enabled

SPI: Disabled
Block WAN Request: Enabled
Multicast Pass Through: Enabled
IPSec Pass Through: Enabled
PPTP Pass Through: Enabled
Remote Management: Disabled
MTU: Disabled

Dynamic Routing: Disabled
Working Mode: Gateway

Static Routing: Unused

I hope this helps

TPK

Hi Pam,

I am sorry that you are having shch difficulty.

To answer your question about sharing a connection…

Windows 98 and later have a built-in Internet Connection Sharing tool. It lets one PC share its Internet connection (a broadband connection or even a modem connection) with other PCs. With Internet connection sharing, you won't need a router, but the other PCs won't be able to access the Internet unless the main PC, the one that's sharing its connection, is turned on.
Internet Connection Sharing eliminates the need for a router, but you'll still have to connect the computers into a network. For sharing a modem connection between two computers, a simple, cheap Ethernet cable will do the job. If you have more than two computers, you can use an inexpensive Ethernet hub to connect them together. Internet connection sharing will even work if you have wireless access cards in each PC but no wireless router.

I assume from your reply that you are connected via a router. There are so many possible router setting issues that without knowing how your home networking system is set up it is difficult to troubleshoot.

The first thing to try is turning off online help.

Captivate uses a connection to an online help system which means that it wants to have that internet connection in case you want to call the help file. You can choose to use offline help instead by going to the Help menu and selecting that option.

As far as router settings are concerned.....

I am currently not at home, so I can’t tell you what settings I have on my router, but I can tell you that I use a Linksys BEFW11S4 Wireless Access Router with a 4 port switch.
I have DHCP enabled (rather than static IP addresses)

If you are somewhat technically inclined there are several things that can be looked at:

Is your router using the latest firmware? Check with the manufacturer, it could be that there is a firmware issue.

One possible test…
Open a command prompt on both machines and type:
ipconfig/all

Now compare the settings. If they are the same you might have a bad NIC card or cable on the router. (unlikely, but worth a check)

Is your Cable Modem a very old one? If it is it might be rated for only 5mb/sec. (again, this is unlikely, but possible).

Is your router's DHCP server enabled?

Also, make sure that the Local Area Connection properties are chosen correctly:

Control Panel ->
Network Connections ->
Right-click on Local Area Conection ->
Click on Properties ->
Under the General tab, and in the "This connection uses the following items:" window, select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
- however, to make it visible, you may need to scroll all the way down using the scroll bar that is on the right ->
Click Properties ->
Make sure that items "Obtain an IP automatically" AND "Obtain DNS server address automatically" are both checked/selected. ->
Click OK to close all the window
Reboot your pc to effect the changes made

Is your router using DHCP? If so you might try assigning a static IP address (in the router) to your different machines. (needless to say, write down ALL your original settings before making any changes).


Other than these checks I'm sorry but I can't offer any quick solutions. I'll try to remember to check my settings when I get home and send you a check list.

TPK

Hello,

I also have a home network and use Captivate routinely. I have 4 computers and a printer hooked up to my cable modem via a linksys router. I have never had the problem you describe.

I would look at how your router is set up.

If you are not using a router and are instead using a "share this resource" setting on one of the computers (ie; you have one computer hooked up to your internet connection and the other computer sharing this "resource") then that is likely the source of your problem.

Captivate by its nature will take up a lot of a computer's resources.

I hope this helps,

TPK