Prime95 connectivity problem
 

Have a problem at the moment and am stumped. I have 2 PCs in the basement running TFs. They're on 24/7. About 2 weeks ago they just stopped connecting to the internet (these PCs are on dial-up). Thought it was a problem with AOL :yucky: but have now tried using a DUN connectoid with MSN and still no luck. The odd thing is that the web works fine. I'm typing this message from said computer right now. Luckily I have enough work reserved for about another week but then I'm out. Already have almost 3 weeks worth of WUs stored up (which is a lot, prime.spl already over 4KB on the 2G Celeron) so need to get them sent in. Does anyone have any idea what the problem might be?

Did you by any chance install a personal firewall?

Or perhaps an old version of prime 95 (21 or lower)?

One machine has a firewall installed but it is not running. The Celeron 2G is running beta 23.7, not sure about the other but I believe it is 22.12. One runs Win2K, the other 98SE.

A temporary manual solution is to stop prime95, zip up the following files

prime.ini
local.ini
worktodo.ini
results.txt
prime.log
prime.spl
pn######.

on the disconnected PC and also on a surrogate connected PC, unzip on the connected, start prime95, it should send the results ( prime.spl ) and get new work.

Rezip the same files and unzip them on the disconnected PC. Unzip the backup zip on the connected PC. Restart prime95
on both.

--Things to check--
Maybe the days between checkins is very large.
Maybe the advanced menu manual checkin is on.
Are both
Use PrimeNet to get work and report results
Use a dial-up connection to the Internet checked ?

Maybe a MS service pack/update has made the RAS routines
to detect if a modem is online not work.

--from undoc.txt---
In prime.ini you can add the line

AlternateModemDetection=1

This will use the InternetGetConnectedState call in WININET.DLL

Can always try stopping prime95 shutting down the PC and restarting.

I sometimes get semi-dead dialup internet connections that are
only fixed with a shutdown and restart.

dsouza123,
Problem with your solution is that only the broadband connected PCs have access and my desktop PC is down at the moment. The laptop doesn't have a floppy and obviously if they were all networked together this wouldn't be an issue.

It is set to do manual check-ins (to save cycles :grin: ) but I have tried the manual communication function with and without this enabled but it still doesn't work. No patches were applied before it stopped working, I have now applied the latest ones thinking that might be the problem but no luck. Also it detects that the computer is connected to the Internet it just can't contact the PrimeNet server for some reason. Have shut down and restarted numerous times but no luck there either.

You could email the zip file to yourself, or if the prime95 disconnected PCs are on a small hub you could bring the notebook down and connect it to the hub to transfer the zip file. If you had a usb drive of some sort, that could be used for the transfer.
Or a serial or parallel direct connect ( a hassle if using the MS DirectLink ).

The isolation from primenet is a true mystery.

I'll try that if I run out of work but it doesn't fix the underlying problem which is what I need to do. Does anyone have any ideas?

Create a file called primenet.ini. Add the line "Debug=1". After you fail to connect, post the debug info that is written to prime.log.

Oops, problem solved.... well half of it anyway. When I was trying to use AOL :yucky: :sick: I was trying to rig a proxy and I forgot to delete the primenet.ini from the C2G, so that one is fixed now. The Comcrap still has a problem, but at least I've identified it now. There's something screwy with the connection itself, maybe some DUN settings aren't right. Will find out and try to fix it. Thanks for the debug tip Prime95, that helped a lot.

Okay, its been two weeks and I've spent hours working on this blasted problem. I've done the Debug=1 on the Comcrap and it comes back with error 10049 no matter what I try. Have tried dialing in with the modem and proxying with the PrimeNet NT Proxy program and the AnalogX proxy software. The computer still has 4 exponents in worktodo.ini, one of which is being worked on. There are two completed results in prime.spl now. Anyone have any ideas? It would be helpful to know what error 10049 is.