# Possible AOL problem?



## nikhibuk

Athlon 2100+
Geforce 4 Graphics card
512MB ram
NForce2 Mobo
40 gig HD

Hi guys, hope someone can help me out.

Ive' had AOL Broadband for about a year now.  I havn't had any serious problems until the last 3 weeks or so.

My problem is that AOL stops responding under load.  If I'm simply using it to browse it runs fine however if I load up Kazzaa and start downloading files, after a while my download rate goes to zero and if I attempt to access a page nothing happens.  This could happen after 30 mins or 3 hours.  

I try to close AOL and it says "AOL is not responding" and I have to do it via the task bar.  Additionally once this happens AOL refuses to load up again until I reboot my system, and the system will not shut down properly, it just goes to the signing out screen and stays there.

Ive formatted the drive and done 2 fresh windows installs using AOL 7, 8 and 9 but it makes no difference.  

Iv'e rung AOL and tried a few things which were unsuccesful, Ive also contacted BT and had a test done one my line, but there's nothing wrong with it.

My drive is partitioned into 2 sections, I keep all my downloads on partition 2 and have not formatted that, could it be a virus that is on the other partition?

As I stated this is only a recent problem.

Sorry bout the essay but any advise would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Nik


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## NikeAero1080

I've had similar problems. It's my belief that what's happening is AOL is taking the majority of your connection. When you run Kazaa, and then surf the net, Kazaa has priority over you IP. AOL, by design, does the same. Eventually you max out your speed and it all goes down hill from there. My advice, use Kazza when you aren't on AOL.


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## Fure6

Do you have to be logged onto AOL to connect to the modem? I have gotten cable internet with the cable company, but not through AOL. With my modem it was always logged on.


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## NikeAero1080

AOL Broadband is just another version of AOL. It allows you to connect to their service at a higher rate. Your cable modem is always connected to the internet. You can use the internet, email, and instant messenger w/o AOL.


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## nikhibuk

Thanks guys

I have to use AOL to connect to the net.  Once it's open I always minimise it and open kazzaa if I'm downloading, unless I'm using Bit torrent sites.

This is a strange problem, I think it may be linked to another problem I had where when playing online games my pings would one day be around the 30 - 40 mark, the next day they would go to around 500 for the same server's I had been using previously.  It would stay like this for about a week before going back to normal.

Ive' currently been downloading for over 4 hours without incident so I don't know if the problem has fixed itself or not.  I'm starting to think it may be the internal phone wiring in my house.


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## nikhibuk

Grrrr it's happening again now.  After downloading from around 8:45 last night till 4:00 this afternoon I was hopeful the problem had gone away.  I reset my connection and have now been cut off 3 times within the space of 2 hours when downloading.  I have rung AOL again and tried even more stuff, here is a list to date of what I have tried:-

1)  Changed filters and disconnected everything else from every phone socket in the house.

2)  Installed 3 different versions of AOL and formatted the hard drive twice.

3)  Had my phone line checked by BT.

4)  Performed various tasks suggested by AOL which were never going to make any difference.

5)  Run fault checks on my modem and AOL.

6)  Run spybot to check for crap.

7)  Threatened to beat my computer.

Aside from my next move which is to try a new ISP I can't think of anything else.  I don't believe that it is an AOL problem though as it is only recent.


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## NikeAero1080

I thought you said that you used AOL Broadband....if that's the case, you don't need it open. Your modem is always connected to the net.


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## nikhibuk

I'm confused.

I do have AOL Broadband but it isn't always connected to the net as I have to sign in, I think you can set it to connect automatically but I don't.

Once it loads up though you can either use it as your browser or minimise it and use IE.  Or so I thought.

If there is some way of just using it connect I would love to know as it is a major strain on system resources.


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## skull

I have the exact same problem, I use bt broadband and for about 10 months have been using bittorrent to downloads many Gb's a month at great speeds, but for the last few weeks (getting worse now) I have been losing my downstream. Watching my BitTorrent client i see my DL rate go all the way from 100 Kb/s to 0 kbs then i lose all my connections to my peers. Going into IE explorer confirms that there is no download as google is not displayed. Although it still seems to be connected as the two monitors icon is still there. clicking on this shows that there is still upload activity. The only solution to this is pulling the modem in and out and reconnecting. Note I can browse all day with no problems, i can also download through IE explorer perfectly well. I thought that maybe I had been downloading too much (60Gb a month) and that BT had capped my connection but my contract for 1Mb says that it is unlimted.

So heres what i think it may be, I can download and browse as much as I want through IE explorer running on port 80 - but cant using P2p aps like bittorrent and kazaa as these use different ports i.e Bittorrent 6881-6889 what i think BT may be doing is stopping you using these ports for your downloads, this is the only thing i can think off. But if this affected the whole country then why wouldnt forums be full of this type of problem? The only reason i think this could be is they are targetting big downloaders because i really rip the pish out of it sometimes. I have also had a warning from ABuse@bt.com for being part of Bittorrent download chain.

If this is the case then maybe we could try to configure our p2p apps to use a port other than the default(which i am now testing). I was going to try all the things you tried to fix it but now i feel there is no point as these two problems are obviously related. 


Do you download a lot?
Have you had a warning from BT or AOL?
Have you fixed the problem? If so please tell.

PS Forgot to add I usually used the bt voyager modem but got a router off a friend and the problem still persists.


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## skull

Right, I downloaded the Azareuse BT client and configured the port to 23089 I have no been downloading 21 hours which is a record lately considering I would lose my DL at random times usually not more than a couple of hours. So the porblem seems to be at BritishT's end, where they are probably throttling known ports for P2P which is common amongst ISP's. Although I think they are only doing this to consistent big downloaders. Anyway problem solved for now. Will keep you posted.


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## Underground_Evo

AOL = THE worst ISP and even program ever!!! I had aol dial-up for about 8 years, then about 6 months ago we got really fed up with AOL, the program takes up a HUGE LOAD of CPU usage, that is why it is always freezing.


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## boost

What a relief to know I am not the only one.I am experiencing Exactly the same problems as Nikhibuk,even down to not being able to close windows! I dont remember getting this problem until upgrading to XP though.
I am using Azureus too.How do you go about configuring ports?
Also, can I log on to aol without loading the aol browser?
Any advice gratefully received.


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## x0m81e

i too have been plagued by this problem over recent months,

it was through a google search that i found this forum & thread, after reading i had to add my 10 cents worth.

aol are throttling the bandwidth on the ports used by programs such a kazaa, gnutella & bittorrent clients. the answer is to set your client to listen for connections to peers on a different range of ports - the default is usually 6881-6889. you need to use a client which will allow you to change these port settings, i use ABC for bittorrent downloads, though Azureus or Shadow is just as good. 

 IANA prefer a port range between 49152 through 65535 .

check this link for a good explanation of how to configure your bit torrent client. you may also need to configure your firewall to allow connections on the port range you do choose. i use a range of 65521 to 65530 [9 ports is more than enough] and now enjoy dl speeds of 56k on my aol connection,
before that it was never higher than 25k.

that said, AOL stops responding every time i try to disconnect, and i need to restart etc before i can re-connect. imo, AOL are scum. they take our money to provide a service [ie. bandwidth] - then try to dictate what it is we can & can't download & share.


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## Hellfire

Possible AOL problems... it's AOL of course it's got problems.. I don't see how people can use Gay-OL it sucks big time


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## nomav6

I dont understand how AOL is still in business


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## dinkimoo

Like x0m81e I found this thread thru doing a search on google. I'm experiencing these problems too. Every time I start Azureus, the downloads and uploads start off fine, then after a few minutes, it drops to 0 b/s and the webpages don't load on AOL or IE. When I try to sign off or exit AOL, it freezes and if I right click to close it the End Now window comes up. AOL then fails to start up again until I restart the computer.... but AOL manages to crash my computer as well when I try to turn it off (it reaches the 'saving your settings' screen) so I have to reboot it. 

I think it might just be bittorrent that is the problem or maybe it's because Azureus is a Java based client. I didn't have problems before, but recently I've downloaded more than usual (about 10 GB in total) using BT. IRC works fine as does WinMX. I've changed to a different port on Azureus already (from when the ports were blacklisted or something). I'll try changing to another client, but I need one where you can pick which files to download.

Well, maybe someone will find a solution to this problem soon. Hopefully anyways.

AOL's so annoying....


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## dinkimoo

OK, I've switched to BitSpirit... downloads are going well and AOL has not crashed!!!   hopefully it'll stay that way....


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## kb1ghc

AOL is for dialup.... slow dialup


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## KUNGFULOSOPHY

*i think you have spyware*

Lots of sites you visit download cookies that act as spyware. If you use kazaa lite it comes with spyware... These often plant programs all through your computer. They utilize "idle" bandwidth to contact their homebases. If you didn't have the problem at first, I suspect you have accumulated these programs and their competing for space. You can go to lavasoft.com and get a free copy of Adaware. This works well for me. Another well spoken of anti-spyware program is spybot,but i have not used it. Be cautious I understand that some programs advertised as anti-spyware are spyware.


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## kof2000

DID u ever try defragmenting ur drives? or diskcleanup or scandisk?


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## dinkimoo

I don't think it's spyware that's the problem - I have both Ad-aware and Spybot - Search & Destroy and use these on a regular basis. I also did a virus scan recently and I have Kerio Personal Firewall installed. I think maybe AOL or BT are blocking well known torrent programs or cutting off the connection when certain ports are used.... but it's just a guess. I had lots of problems with BT before as well...



> DID u ever try defragmenting ur drives? or diskcleanup or scandisk?


I thought doing these would just free up space? How would this help with the AOL/bittorrent problem?

Also, just wondering, what ISPs do you use?


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## boost

I have now got rid of alot of the problems (downloads dropping off, not being able to close aol and windows xp after running torrent clients, etc.) after uninstalling Norton Internet Security !
Depending on the torrent I can download at approaching 100kb/s, surf the web at the same time and close down every thing cleanly when I am done.


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## Praetor

> My problem is that AOL stops responding under load. If I'm simply using it to browse it runs fine however if I load up Kazzaa and start downloading files, after a while my download rate goes to zero and if I attempt to access a page nothing happens. This could happen after 30 mins or 3 hours.


Sounds like an ISP cap on the connection-count or connection-rate. 



> I try to close AOL and it says "AOL is not responding" and I have to do it via the task bar


Of course it could just as easily be your system not being able to keep up with the connection-count ... looking at your specs I wouldnt think so though....

*just realizes he answred a 3 month old post*



> after uninstalling Norton Internet Security !


Its not so much NIS that's a problem but the fact that for NIS to do it's job (as per any other firewall), it has to inspect every packet and analyze every connection .... and there are lots of them


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## boxerman19

I had the same problem with aol and kazza and got told i did not have enough ram so i went out and got some more and i have not had any problems since, 

and i dont log off from my aol it is connected 24/7, and i download all day and night too. 

If it aint your ram then try uninstalling kazza and reinstalling it might be damaged as i have had that problem as well


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