AIM Video Chat Router Ports?

[mbliu]

Hello everyone. I have been using AIM Video chat for a decent time now and it's been working well except for ONE occasional problem.

Erraticaly, my ROUTER (not just AIM) disconnects from the internet randomly when I am using Video chat. Sometimes it simply disconnects while other times the ENTIRE router locks up and I cannot even access the admin page.(In this case I just have to restart the router...) There is no fixed pattern that I can see in this. Some days it works without single disconnect. Other days it disconnects every few minutes. This happens only with video chat, not regular IMs.

I had no other ports besides 5190 open for AIM so I looked at the AIM official FAQ and it said to open ports 1024-5000. I'm not sure whether this would solve the problem but I tried it. However since now I am forwarding ALL those ports to only my computer, the other computers in my network cannot access the internet now. Also I'm kinda wary about leaving all those ports open. I was wondering maybe if my router is blocking a port that the other AIM video chat user is sending data on, maybe my router overloads from all the data it is blocking? But that doesn't really make sense.

Does anyone know what specific ports AIM Video chat uses AND/OR if there's a way on a (kinda old linksys) router to just forward and open ports for ALL users to use?...although that kinda defeats the purpose of "forwarding"... I'm not sure; I'm kinda confused.

I've searched online and could not find a SINGLE case similar to mine. -.-

Thanks in advance for any help!

[mbliu]

ANYONE have any ideas?? =(

[Tigerblade]

mbliu... this isnt like an instant message, it's a forum. not everyone is available to answer questions immediately, it may take a day or two before someone with an answer can see and answer your question. please be patient.

i'll see what i can find in the meantime.

[mbliu]

bump

This problem is really bothering me. Has no one experienced a similar situation?

[Tigerblade]

hmm... what model linksys router are you using, out of curiosity? it may simply be a problem with the router. i know my WRT54G sporadically resets the connection, or just dies for no apparent reason (David keeps telling me to just get a better router, but meh). Although you mentioned that it only happens with video chat... I don't know much about video chat, as i dont have a camera to use it with, but is it possible that there's simply enough data flowing through that the router can't handle it? I know mine overloads when any of us are downloading via P2P applications and the bandwidth is just more than it can handle sometimes.

someone else with more experience on this wanna step in about now?

[mbliu]

I use a (really old) Linksys HPRO200 router. I do some high bandwidth file transfers sometimes and the router works fine. My first thought was also that the router might not be able to handle the data flow but I can't isolate the problem. Thanks for your help. This mite just be another one of those unfindable, unsolvable, mystery router problems. -_-"