Member Avatar for durston

I´m running XP Home Edition (german) on a Gericom notebook (Webshox 1720E DVD), and have been plagued for the last 3 months or so by a freeze effect when I dial into the Internet using its 56k modem (either AOL or Arcor access). Access via a home network with a Desktop PC (also XP home) & DSL seemed unaffected, but every time I needed to use an analogue telephone line (hotel etc.) this bug just crippled the notebook immediately after initial Internet access.
This freeze effect first appeared in June 2004, either after an automatic update, or after I had linked up my desktop & notebook (again!) in a home network (ethernet 100) with DSL.
The mouse cursor moved, but everything else just didn´t respond (apart from one brief spurt of limited activity) until suddenly after about 9-10 minutes all those stored-up clicks got executed and everything seemed normal again.

I´ve spent literally hours and days trying to solve this, not wanting to re-install XP again (apart from this bug, the notebook was really stable).
By starting the Taskmanager before dialling, I was able to identify one "svchost" process as at least being involved in the bug (when I killed this particular svchost process, everything unfroze, but internet access was broken and could only be restarted by rebooting - and then the freeze re-ocurred...).
There was no excessive CPU or HDD activity, Zone Alarm indicated no Internet traffic, and the freeze continued for the full 9-10 minutes even if I disconnected the telephone line or killed AOL in the meantime.
However, I´m not a Windows programmer & had no idea what exactly "svchost" does (there are 4-5 instances of it running, the one with the most memory was the culprit).

A few weeks ago a computer-savvy accqaintance suggested Network Address Translation (NAT) as the culprit, but my googling delivered a little more information than I wanted, which I had little time or inclination to read and digest.
Finally last night, after hours of trawling the Internet, loading & executing several Spyware programs - all found different items to be immunised/quarantined/deleted, but none solved the problem - I found a tip suggesting "tasklist" to show what´s running in the "container" of "svchost". After downloading "tasklist" (not included in XP Home Edn. - how useful!), I was able to see the services contained in the suspect "svchost" process.
The first one was "6to4".
Google took me to a description of "6to4", on reading that, NAT came immediately to mind.
XP Help for "6to4"delivered the syntax:

"ipv6 uninstall": Bingo!

Rebooted, dialled in and everything seems to be working fine now - no freezing, no noticeable negative side-effects.

Can someone provide some insight into what the f**k this was all about, and why there appears to be so little information on this bug (if bug it is)? Most of the "freeze" tips I found pointed towards Spyware, virus, sh*t AOL etc, but I suspect this could be the cause of headaches for many other users. It´s hardly likely that this effect is specific to my notebook & software setup.

Can I expect problems running without "ipv6"?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by vigneshvh

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Good troubleshooting by — this behaviour matches how Windows XP’s IPv6 support (the IP Helper subsystem) implements 6to4 tunnelling and is hosted inside an svchost instance. On XP the IP Helper service provides the automatic 6to4/ISATAP/Teredo tunnel support that will try to configure addresses and find a relay when IPv6 is present; that activity runs in the shared svchost process and can block or stall networking-related calls when the interface is a dial‑up or sits behind NAT. IP Helper / iphlpsvc (Microsoft docs). (learn.microsoft.com)

How that produces a long freeze: when IPv6/6to4 is active Windows can auto-create 6to4 addresses (2002::/16) and try to discover a 6to4 relay (hosts often resolve a well‑known name and use an anycast relay); those DNS/relay lookups and the resulting timeouts or routing changes can stall the IP helper code while the modem connection negotiates or the OS waits on network I/O — exactly the sort of symptom where the mouse moves but clicks appear queued. The Windows 6to4 behaviour is documented in the IPv6 docs and the 6to4 anycast mechanism is defined in the IETF RFCs. (learn.microsoft.com)

Practical, low-risk fix for XP-era systems that don’t need IPv6: remove or disable the Microsoft IPv6 protocol on the machine (either from the network‑adapter properties or via the IPv6 uninstall option Microsoft documents). That removes the 6to4 helper and stops the svchost activity; Microsoft even lists removing IPv6 as a supported workaround in certain cases. Be aware this prevents any IPv6 connectivity until IPv6 is reinstalled. (learn.microsoft.com)

Extra notes: use a tool like Sysinternals Process Explorer to map which services live inside a given svchost if you need to confirm the culprit, and prefer disabling the IP Helper service (or setting it manual) only when you understand the tradeoffs. was correct that most home users on IPv4 will be fine without IPv6; ’s malware warning is less likely here because the behaviour and the service name point to normal OS networking code rather than infection. For modern Windows versions Microsoft’s guidance about IPv6 differs, so treat this advice as specific to XP-era systems. (learn.microsoft.com)

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Member Avatar for alc6379

Yes, you can run just fine without IPv6, if you're not running on an IPv6 enabled network. If things are running okay for you, more than likely (and most commonly) you're just running plain-old IPv4.

Member Avatar for richthorpe

I love you and want to have your children :)

Thanks so much, this dialup thing has been giving me the shits for ages.

Member Avatar for vigneshvh

From your scrap i can understand that you were running XP Home Edition on a Gericom notebook,and have been plagued for the last 3 months or so by a freeze effect when I dial into the Internet using its 56k modem .your Access via a home network with a Desktop PC seemed unaffected, but every time you needed to use an analogue telephone line this bug just crippled the notebook immediately after initial Internet access.
you got such freezeing effect first appeared in June 2004, either after an automatic update, or after you had linked up your desktop & notebook (again!) in a home network (ethernet 100) with DSL.
The mouse cursor moved, but everything else just didn´t respond (apart from one brief spurt of limited activity) until suddenly after about 9-10 minutes.This type of peoblem is called system hanging up,ie system will not be in a condition to do task and seems as system is not responding,all those stored-up clicks got executed and everything seemed normal again.

AND after starting the Taskmanager before dialling, you were able to identify one "svchost" process as at least being involved in the bug (when you killed this particular svchost process, everything unfroze, but internet access was broken and could only be restarted by rebooting - and then the freeze re-ocurred...).
So i think your system is affected with a critical virus ,i think its behaviour is different compared to other virus perfomance,so better you use a good antivirus and try to remove this virus even after virus scan if your system is having virus then the only way is to format your c drive and reinstall
tanku

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