Windows XP stalls hangs freezes

** NOTE: NO ONE has been able to figure this out across MULTIPLE forums. **

Downloading torrents, watching videos, playing winamp, making audio/video recordings, using skype or webcam, ends up in computer disconnect (while showing it is connected) from net and stalls into a freeze where only option left is to restart manually.

*side note: at times there is a "connected" window that shows up to remind the net is connected, happens often.

PC specs:
-Running XP Pro SP2 [genuine]
-Biostar N325a-7 mobo
-AMD Athlon 64-bit processor
-AGP 256MB DDR GeForce 6200 video
-512MBx2 OCZ PC3200 DDR1 ram
-Rosewill 500watt PSU
-SATA HD
-WiFiMAX (Model No.: WL-685Z) wifi adapter
-A secondary Linksys (Model No.: WUSB54G v4) wifi adapter (not connected)

Considering:
-software problem
-Windows XP (all versions?) bug
-Bad net driver
-Bad codecs

PERSONAL NOTE: I disconnected from the net and had no problems watching videos or playing music.

 

I've been messing around and I've found while I am disconnected, all computer functions are normal..... it leads me to believe it has something to do with the wireless networking drivers.

I've uninstalled the ZyDRA drivers but the stall freeze problem is still happening.

How to rollback drivers that can't be rolled back? Wouldn't uninstalling be enough? Could this be a service? Maybe I should attempt increasing my MTU size?

I want to reclaim stability in Windows XP again! Please, any thoughts are appreciated.

 

Does anyone know how to restore the default XP wireless drivers? I have uninstalled both the ZyDRA (which had an XP compatibility warning) and also the Linksys. The ZyDRA appear to be completely gone. The Linksys keeps auto-adding itself even after uninstall. I just want to get the regular XP wireless drivers back and see what I can do from there. Maybe the Linksys has an updated driver on their website which might fix the problem but this still isn't solving this problem for the thousands of other Windows users with other wireless devices. I am going to check my event viewer and post the details below.

The only error I seen was under the system: TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

 

Well, Thanks for all your assistance, majorgeeks. I have managed to diagnose and solve the problem with out the geeky advice from the group.

The freeze problem narrowed down to me checking my eventviewer -> system and I noticed I kept getting a TCP/IP error that stated:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Tcpip
Event Category: None
Event ID: 4226
Date: 09/02/2011
Time: 06:16:46
User: N/A
Computer: DOOM-CASTKET
Description:
TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

The first thing I did was disable the Wireless Zero service under start -> run -> services.msc

After investigating further, I found that Microsoft actually modified Windows XP SP2 to ADD a connection LIMIT to people to avoid fast spreading of worms through out the planet (apparently 1 person infected shares with 10 to 10th power).

I next went on a search and found a program to modify the tcpip.sys file located in windows\system32\drivers to drop the connection limit and raise the allowed connections to any number I chose up to 1.7 million (I believe).

The program to modify the connection limit and set it where you want it (for event viewer ID 4226 error) is here: http://www.lvllord.de/

There is a german and an english version.

I hope this helps someone out there, this problem plagued me for nearly 4 years.

Peace!

 

PS in a rare case (because it did happen once) your PC still stalls, be sure to go to start -> run -> services.msc -> windows time -> (right click) properties -> stop & disable service.

I tried to edit this into my previous post but I don't see an edit button!! WT*?

 

I just had another stall into a freeze. I swear, my computer is so used to being hard-reset that I might just remove soft-shutdown.

The previous problem IS RESOLVED. However, now I've found an underlying problem. I went to the eventviewer this time and found this Warning Error:

Details
Product: Windows Operating System
ID: 8021
Source: BROWSER
Version: 5.2
Symbolic Name: EVENT_BROWSER_SERVER_LIST_FAILED
Message: The browser service was unable to retrieve a list of servers from the browser master %1 on the network %2.

Browser master: %1
Network: %2

This event may be caused by a temporary loss of network connectivity. If this message appears again, verify that the server is still connected to the network. The return code is in the Data text box.

Explanation
The master browser maintains the browse list and provides it to other computers when requested. This computer could not retrieve the browse list from the master browser four times consecutively.

Possible causes include:

Network outages,
Name resolution problems,
An overloaded master browser, or
A master browser that is unavailable because, for example, it is shut down or its network connectivity is lost.
This event usually indicates poor network health. For more information about browsing, see Appendix I: Windows 2000 Server Browser Service on the Microsoft Technet Web site.


User Action
If this event is logged more than several times per day, check network connectivity issues. Otherwise, no user action is required.



Version: 5.0
Symbolic Name: EVENT_BROWSER_SERVER_LIST_FAILED
Message: The browser service was unable to retrieve a list of servers from the browser master %1 on the network %2.
Browser master: %1
Network: %2
This event may be caused by a temporary loss of network connectivity. If this message appears again, verify that the server is still connected to the network. The return code is in the Data text box.

Explanation
The master browser maintains the browse list and provides it to other computers when requested. This computer could not retrieve the browse list from the master browser four times consecutively.

Possible causes include:

Network outages,
Name resolution problems,
An overloaded master browser, or
A master browser that is unavailable because, for example, it is shut down or its network connectivity is lost.
This event usually indicates poor network health. For more information about browsing, see Appendix I: Windows 2000 Server Browser Service on the Microsoft Technet Web site.


User Action
If this event is logged more than several times per day, check network connectivity issues. Otherwise, no user action is required.



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Currently there are no Microsoft Knowledge Base articles available for this specific error or event message. For information about other support options you can use to find answers online, see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx.
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Apparently, I need to try a new wifi adapter/router, otherwise there is something I haven't yet thought of.

Once again, I am using: WiFiMAX (Model No.: WL-685Z) wifi adapter (not connected)
-A secondary Linksys (Model No.: WUSB54G v4) wifi adapter (connected)

So as followup, if this stall problem is still happening for you, I would consider replacing the wifi adapter/router (not saying you should). If there is another solution, please post.

 

Ok, the problem has come back. The system is much more stable, I can play videos while online with out the hang into freeze happening as often.

As stated before, high stress loads for the network, winamp, videos (bsplayer, windows media player, youtube, webcam, skype), vuze, firefox, all programs of these types eventually lead to a freeze.

I am so tired of it. These companies make a mockery of us through bad programming and hardware design! I have a feeling that being hardwired would fix this problem but it is not an option here ATM and I'd like to use my wifi adapters.

My new event ID errors are:
8021 The browser was unable to retrieve a list of servers from the browser master.
1003 Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP Server).

These events commonly show up just before the stall/hang into freeze. There are times though where the event viewer doesn't capture what errors happened before the stall.

Please, any advice would help.

 

If your presumption is true, this hardware is either damaged or never was capable of multiple connection requests in XP. I should find another way to connect to the internet.

I always thought Linksys to be a good company... I don't have this problem on the Windows 2000 PC and I have the XP drivers for XP PC.

You aren't the first person to suspect it was the hardware...

However, I do believe there is a configuration I could use to bypass these problems and maybe fix this issue for many others using XP with wireless adapters encountering the same problem.

 

Previously, I turned off Net Zero Wireless Config service. I have the Linksys WUSB54G v4 drivers installed w/out the software, XP handles the drivers.

We are using an Ambit router provided by the TWC company, instead of the Linksys router that I own.

I checked my DHCP routing table. DHCP is enabled and two PCs are showing up, those are the ones I am using right now. We have 3 PCs on network, one is idle and I also noticed is currently not listed.

I noticed a lease time of 3600.

The connection has been stable today except 2 restarts. As long as I don't have too many incoming/outgoing connections with video type programs, I am stable.