Why does Windows eat my internet connection?

November 9, 2007 4:07 PM

Why does Windows eat my internet connection?

I have a dual boot system. Windows XP 64 on one side, Fedora 7 64 on the other.

Whenever I boot from Fedora to Windows, I notice two things happen, although I am not sure if they are related to each other.

This is when I switch back to Windows:
1. My clock is set 5 hours in the future, and every time I try and reset it, when I go back to windows it is always this way. Fedora appears to be self correcting, but windows can't deal.

2. My internet is fux0red for about 10 minutes after I boot into windows. I can get some traffic out, and my connectivity comes back slowly, like I can connect to some sites and not others. The other people in the house also notice issues with their connection whenever I reboot my computer back into windows. 5 - 10 minutes after I reboot, internet connectivity returns to normal with no apparent human intervention.

I should note that when I boot back to Linux FROM Windows, I have immediate connectivity and noone in the house notices.


This makes me suspect that there is some DNS caching issue going on with my router, but if that is the problem, then how could my computer be causing the router to dump its cache? Could the solution be as simple as "buy a new router"?

T.I.A.

posted by judge.mentok.the.mindtaker to technology (8 comments total)

The clock thing also happens when dual booting Mac / Windows. Windows jiggers the BIOS clock for no apparent reason. Mac eventually notices that the time is wrong and just sets it back to what it was.

The internet connectivity thing doesn't seem to be a problem for this Windows / Mac machine, and I haven't heard anything like that from my other friends with similar Windows / Mac sharing. Dunno if that helps at all.
posted by TeatimeGrommit at 4:12 PM on November 9, 2007

For number 1, in Fedora there should be a setting that allows you to specify whether your hardware/bios/system clock should store GMT or Local time. You should switch it so that it stores Local time. Right now, Fedora is setting your hardware clock to GMT, and then translating it on display into your timezone (eastern?). Windows doesn't have this choice, because it assumes your system clock is in Local time.

For the other issue, what are your DNS servers in the router?
posted by odinsdream at 4:56 PM on November 9, 2007

For point A, Raymond Chen explains why Windows assumes the BIOS clock is set to local time.
posted by mge at 8:38 PM on November 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

24.29.103.10
24.29.103.11
posted by judge.mentok.the.mindtaker at 8:39 PM on November 9, 2007

Have you tried doing a packet capture on your network interface as soon as you can after bootup so you can see exactly what's going on for those 10 minutes? I recommend using WireShark.
posted by pmbuko at 9:23 PM on November 9, 2007

There is a registry tweak for Windows that will make it respect the Bios clock as GMT, but keep in mind that some programs on your computer might be thinking that they need to do math on the clock to get GMT, so that will mess them up. Google it if you're interested, but try it at your own risk.

On a side note, is there any way for Mac to automatically set the clock when it firsts gets network connectivity? I've tried things to set it up as it boots out from windows, but it can't access the internet right away as my college's network is slow to connect people. Maybe there's something I could set up from the terminal? Or even just a command I could run from Quicksilver to automatically update the time?
posted by mccarty.tim at 11:26 AM on November 10, 2007

mccarty.tim; what do you mean your college network is slow to connect people?
posted by odinsdream at 12:24 PM on November 10, 2007

I dual boot, and have found my life is much easier if I just tell Windows that GMT is my local time zone. It doesn't attempt to reset the motherboard clock that way.

I'm sorry that this doesn't directly provide an answer to your internet connection woes, but it would at least make some sense that they're due to clock drift.
posted by Asymptote at 4:23 PM on November 11, 2007