Help needed: Cannot stay connected to MSN and ICQ

[Rapts]

I am using Telkom Unshaped ADSL and cannot stay connected to MSN and ICQ for more than 5 minutes at a time. I have not reached my cap and everything else works fine. I need to be able to use these two chat clients as I run my business off of them. Can someone please offer some advise before I /wrists.

Thanks in advance for any help given

 

[jacobstone]

What router are you using? What is your MTU size?

 

[mac_mac74]

I am using Telkom Unshaped ADSL and cannot stay connected to MSN and ICQ for more than 5 minutes at a time. I have not reached my cap and everything else works fine. I need to be able to use these two chat clients as I run my business off of them. Can someone please offer some advise before I /wrists.

Thanks in advance for any help given

not sure if this will help, but i had similar prob in the past, all i did was open up hotmail web page and left it open, somehow it seems to cache and MSN works - yeah it may sound like bull, but i swear it worked.

 

[Rapts]

I am using the telkom marconi router
MTU set at default of 1492

 

[Bumzilla]

wtf? you're still using icq? all my friends have either moved to aol/yahoo/msn! still have my icq account which I still connect thru trillian. dunno if trying other clients will help? my trillian msn does keep on kicking me offline ocassionally but it connects automatically right back. perhaps give trillian.cc a shot? it's better in a way since I have friends using all the other chat msgers & all I need to do is open one program which connects to them all.

 

[Rapts]

Ye i us trillian.
Thing is all my clients use ICQ so I am forced to use it as well.

 

[jacobstone]

rapts - i've heard of guys having to lower their MTU size until they get stability in MSN.

Also - weirdest thing ever - at work I have Cisco Catalyst switches between me and a Netgear DG834 router. If I install any firmware higher than 2.10.22 on the Netgear then my MSN traffic does not work AT ALL.

I have tried time and again but MSN only works with the DG834 on 2.10.22. It's freakish, as if there's some incompatibility with the Catalysts.

If you're feeling lucky - experiment with some MTU sizes... or go swop your modem

Setting MTU size is a process of trial-and-error: start with the maximum value of 1500, then reduce the size until the problem goes away. Using one of these values is likely to solve problems caused by MTU size:

1500. The largest Ethernet packet size; it is also the default value. This is the typical setting for non-PPPoE, non-VPN connections.
1492. The size PPPoE prefers.
1472. Maximum size to use for pinging. (Bigger packets are fragmented.)
1468. The size DHCP prefers.
1460. Usable by AOL if you don't have large email attachments, etc.
1430. The size VPN and PPTP prefer.
1400. Maximum size for AOL DSL.
576. Typical value to connect to dial-up ISPs.

Source: http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/N100603.asp (notice it lists MSN as affected by MTU)

 

[Rapts]

Some good advise and will give it a try
A very interesting thing to note is that after about 7pm this evening, without having change nothing, MSN and ICQ have not dropped at all. I never noticed this before because I always used ISDN to keep my IM clients open. Imagine if we had a different type of internet at night compared to another internet during the day.

An Ode to Telwescrewzaancum.....

 

[jacobstone]

I always used ISDN to keep my IM clients open.

Rapts - what do you mean always used ISDN? Are you only recently not using ISDN? I assumed this problem was happening on your ADSL connection.

 

[Rapts]

I use multiple connections with my business. ADSL and ISDN. Was always easy to just connect with MSN and ICQ on the ISDN connection because I knew that I would not ever get a dropped connection. I mean let face it, ISDN is the best internet we have in South Africa in terms of clarity of connection and quality. A damn shame we do not have ISDN type quality with ADSL bandwidth.

I am over compromising on my MSN and ICQ staying connected and would like them to now work on ADSL. The way normal internet users have it.

Telbum - Where our best effort service is no service whatsoever