I was noticing odd disconnects running networked application on my laptop since installing vista on it. After quite a bit of delving, what I'm seeing is this.
I'm using ping as a way of checking for network connectiveity, it is a basic but seemingly effective way of seeing how well I'm connected.
When I test my connection by pinging a known machine from vista I get a pretty consistent 6-12% packet loss as reported by ping. It doesn't seem to matter whether I use a wireless card or the builtin wired network card on the laptop. Changing the cable doesn't change this result. Another machine on the same cable gets 0% loss (it's running xp). Rebooting back to xp on the original laptop gets 0% packet loss.
As far as I can tell, this is affecting two different network cards so I'm hard pressed to think that it's a network card driver issue, but I've got no clue how to pin this down. Right now my only solution is to switch back to xp where this hardware suddenly works perfectly.
Any suggestions as to how I track this down?
BTW the machine is up to date as far as windowsupdate is concerned.
Thanks - Guy

Have you tested the router for Vista compatibility?
microsoft.com/windows/using/tools/igd/default.mspx
support.microsoft.com/kb/932134/en-us
Kerry Brown Microsoft MVP - Shell/User vistahelp.ca
"Guy"

Well my home router fails the UPnP test - not too surprising it's not exactly brand new. I'll have to test my work routerlater.
However the test result says that this shouldn't affect basic internet connectivity whatever that means, I'm not really sure that a 10%packet loss on a basically idle network counts as unaffected.
If this is a normal response to using Vista on current hardware I'm going to be very disapointed since most of the time I have no control over that sort of hardware and I didn't upgrade my OS to downgrade my connectivity like that.
Guy
"Kerry Brown" wrote:

OK so a bit of mucking around later, I've enabled UPnP on my router and the router test tool claims that my connection now passes muster.
Not that this has made any difference, I still get 10% or so ping packet loss if I use Vista and 0% if I use XP.
Any suggestions?
Thanks - Guy
"Guy" wrote:

You could try turning off Receive Window Autotuning.
support.microsoft.com/kb/934430
The article is about firewalls but the setting can cause problems if any hardware on the network doesn't support it.
Kerry Brown Microsoft MVP - Shell/User vistahelp.ca
"Guy"

I'm afraid that that didn't do it either.
Not only that, but the command to re-enable the autotuning gives me this error:
c:\> netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=enabled The parameter is incorrect.
Apparently the msdn article is out of date, the correct command is:
netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal
Anyway, thanks for the help trying to work this one out, but still not there yet.
Guy
"Kerry Brown" wrote:

I can't think of anything else to try.
Kerry Brown Microsoft MVP - Shell/User vistahelp.ca
"Guy"

Anyone else got any ideas? Am I really the only person to see such consistent packet loss under Vista? (OK, that's a rhetorical question, obviously if lots of others were seeing this it'd have been fixed ages ago).
Anyway, is there any sort of logging or trace that anyone can think of that might help me track this down? I'd hate to just do a re-install in an attempt to get the OS to work correctly.
Guy
"Kerry Brown" wrote:

"Guy"

What motherboard? Is the LAN card onboard? Is there a BIOS update available? You pretty much eliminated everything except the computer.
Kerry Brown Microsoft MVP - Shell/User vistahelp.ca

It's a Sony Vaio Sz160p so I'm guessing that it's some Sony motherboard. This problem occurs with both the Intel PRO/wireless 3945ABG card and the Marvell Yukon 88E8036 on board lan controller. I've not found any BIOS updates for them yet. And again, XP works fine on this same hardware, I can dual boot it and keep trying both. One works and the other doesn't.
I'll take another look for BIOS updates though, something might have shown up, Sony don't make it particularly easy to find stuff in a timely manner to be honest.
Guy
"Kerry Brown" wrote:

Did you try the latest drivers for the NICs?
downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/detail_desc.aspx?strstate=live&productid=2259&dwnldid=13001&agr=n&lang=eng&prdmap=2259
marvell.com/drivers/driverDisplay.do?dId=170&pId=39
Make sure you create a restore point before trying these drivers.
Kerry Brown Microsoft MVP - Shell/User vistahelp.ca
"Guy"

Guy,
I'm sorry you're experiencing issues. If you're still able to repro the packet loss, are you willing to work with us to run some tracing and send us the logs so we can check them out?
"Guy" wrote:

I have Internet connectivity for browsing and small file download, however anything over 128 kb aprox incurs significant packet loss. I've used Network Monitor 3 & MMC Reliability & Performance monitor to capture network traffic & Vista performance counters. I am not able to look inside the ISO layers to determine where the packet loss is happening. The packets are getting to the PC but are being lost or rejected somewhere in the network stack.
Incoming packets sequences numbers and corresponding ACKs are all good for a a short while then the required ACK for a packet is not issued. Shortly after a ACK for the previous packet is reissued many times. This is unsuccessful then a new request to re-start at a much earlier sequence number is requested. This takes some time to sort out. File copy from a XP PC on the local subnet also fails.
I was able to download up to 1 meg a second on my ADSL 2 net connection - now I'm down to 80 kbs download & 800 kbs upload. As you can see I'm not happy. I was OK until "around" 14th June - Microsoft updates automatically applied.
I have installed hot fix Windows6.0-KB931770-x86 with no effect.
I have an xp pc on the same internet connection - it can receive OK. Vista has the same behaviour with firewall on & off. Outlook is able to download attachments OK, most around 100kb. I have switched cables, network cards & PCI slots with no change to packet loss in the Vista PC.
I can reproduce the issue.
Can anyone help me?
"Kim [MS]" wrote:

David,
Can you please contact me offline at "sfeng at microsoft dot com"? We are interested in getting more details about your issue.
Thanks. Stanley
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of included script samples (if any) are subject to the terms specified at microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm"
"David R" <David R discussions.microsoft.com>

I have the same problem as mentioned by Guy in the original post. I have tested my router with Microsoft's router test and I pass everything fine except the UPnP test, which I purposely have disabled in my router. So I am fine there. My packet loss disappears for a little bit if I repair my Internet connection. Disabling TCP autotuning doesnt seem to help. Lastly, I am hardwired, so it is not a WiFi issue. I went into my XP partition to see if I would get the same packet loss at regular intervals. The conclusion was that I do NOT experience the same packet loss problem in my XP partition with the same hardware. (A8N-E nforce4 ultra motherboard with built in nvidia gigabit NIC).
I am not sure what else to do.
"Guy" wrote: