why does this work, scanning of lang

[fleamailman]

why would this cure the problem


Sounds like XP is scanning your LAN for a server it can't find...try this:

Open Control Panel and double click on "Network Connections". Right click on your "Local Area Connection" and choose "Properties". Click on "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and then on the "Properties" button. Select "Use the following IP address" and give it a dummy address such as is shown below.

IP address: 1.2.3.4
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0

Click "Ok" to all open windows and reboot. Any difference?

[Tortanick]

What problem? hard to awnser without knowing.

If its scanning for a DCHP server then its looking for something to tell it an IP address and thats why giving it a static one will fix the problem.

[fleamailman]

thanks, below is the victim's situation, I suggested my usual spring clean, and along came someone with this suggestion too



I have had no probs for a while and now i seem to notice a really long delay when i start my pc in the morning. it will go through the normal booting procedures, but it will stay on the desktop page for at least a few minutes WITHOUT any of the icons on the desktop as well as any time clock, mcafee icon, or internet icons. once it starts to load, it runs good until i turn it off.

this HP dv8000 pavillion laptop has been running good since i replaced the 1GB ram stick. i only have been doing the antivirus weekly checkup, as well as the normal adaware se, mru blaster, and spybot.

this just started about a week or two ago, and i did not make any changes or repairs until i here from the pros at G2G.

thanks for your help in advance.

[rVidia]

I have had no probs for a while and now i seem to notice a really long delay when i start my pc in the morning. it will go through the normal booting procedures, but it will stay on the desktop page for at least a few minutes WITHOUT any of the icons on the desktop...
Has the user installed any new programs lately? There may be a longer delay because of a lot of startup apps, so you may want to consider suggesting the user to open Start > Run > msconfig > Startup tab and uncheck any unecessary startup items there.

[kelly]

Several weeks ago I had an XP machine that took 8 minutes to boot. As I worked on it, I noticed that the behavior was changing. I made an Acronis True Image of the disk, installed a new disk and moved the image to the new disk. The thing started running like a champ.
- Tony

[fleamailman]

sorry I have just looked at my post and once again I notice that I have posted the wrong bit of the problem so here it is now, pointing to the router as the problem: however, what I don't understand is how this fix(first post bove)works, why would it clear the problem below



did as you said and it acted up again. recounting my steps, this is what i did. i first turned off my laptop, then disconnected the router and the modem. after a miinute, i connected the modem and let it stabilize. then i powered up the router. then i turned on my laptop. it took 3 mins to get the icons again. so i rebooted and it only took 24 seconds to get the icons, BUT it went until over three minutes to get internet back on.

sorry for my getting it wrong as usual then
sin.,flea

[jflan]

Startup Folder is a good place to start looking, as suggested by rVidia.
Uncheck any uninvited guests.
Sometimes a Startup "needed" app can get messed up during one of its scheduled updates.

It's a bit time consuming, but what you can do is go to the Startup Folder and uncheck everything. Then bring your apps back one at a time (re-start) until you find the culprit.

Something else to try is opening Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt tap Del)
Click on the Processes tab and then click (twice) on CPU.
The resource hog moves to the top of the list.

[fleamailman]

thanks jflan, my fault, probably my english too, but I am not dealing with the victims problem here, I just saw this fix and I am trying to find out if this fix works, and why it works, in a nutshell why does giving a dummy address(such as is shown below) clear XP from searching the lang for a server it cannot find, because I have never seen this a as cure and wonder its validity as one

IP address: 1.2.3.4
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0

[Seth]

Several weeks ago I had an XP machine that took 8 minutes to boot. As I worked on it, I noticed that the behavior was changing. I made an Acronis True Image of the disk, installed a new disk and moved the image to the new disk. The thing started running like a champ.
- Tony

I've experienced this hard drive issue as well.

Recently on another forum, a poster complained of a slow system and had already done the typical tune up. I suggested full hard drive error checking. The poster responded back that the error checking worked and the system was back to full speed. This would have been caused by a random glitch that caused drive corruption, or the hard drive was failing. Either way, in such a case hard drive diagnostics would be the next step.

[dbarrow]

Both instances are correct...
A machine, connected to a network, has to join and negotiate with the network when booting. I forget the specific malfunction but it causes that machine to hang for a long time and drags down the others on the network. A repair on the network connection to flush DNS cache was one cure but there was something else I can't think of right now. This is of particular note on machines with network shares of folders as the other machines can't resolve the share causing explorer to hang.

A corrupt drive, even one partition with a corrupt block here and there can cause a hang. If it fails to resolve after chkdsk and defrag, or comes back, you just have to replace the drive. If that drive also contains shared folders and one of them is slightly corrupt, it can bring your network to a standstill as the shares take forever to resolve on the network.

Been through both the above!
If you have several machines on a network and the one you are at seems to be balky, disconnect it from the network and reboot. If the problem immediately vanishes, it may not be a problem on that machine but on one of the other networked machines.
I've chased that ghost in circles before!

A slowly failing drive on my storage machine, which never gets direct keyboard time, caused all sorts of intermittent symptoms like the above in all the other machines for months until I tracked it down. Same with another primary machine that had a drive with known bad sectors. I should have put the clues together but it took a while before I tracked down the problem.

[fleamailman]

thanks for all these replies, victim has stopped posting so I don't know if the cure worked or he gave up, I was just shadowing the thread there without making comment by me. However, I am still intreeged by the cure of making a dummy ip address when system seems to be searching for non existant server
IP address: 1.2.3.4
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
- is this a good cure for dealing with a lagging router(this being my basic question here), or is it a red herring, also does it cure in itself or is it a pointer to the source of the problem

[Terry Hanushek]

FMM


However, I am still intreeged by the cure of making a dummy ip address when system seems to be searching for non existant server
A dummy IP address for a non-existent server .... makes perfect sense to me. :D

Terry

[fleamailman]

no it sounds wrong to me, but if it works then I suppose it is OK