University firewall

[Xcalibur]

My friend has a university ethernet connection and is having trouble playing any games online. He has tried Star Wars Galaxies, Ultima Online, and Neverwinter Nights and he can't connect to any of them. I'm guessing this is probably a firewall issue with the university internet connection, but is there any way around this? Are there any Windows utilities to scan the ports of a connection and find out which ports are open and which ones are blocked? Any suggestions would be appreciated!

[Zac]

If you start running port scans the network administrators will probably want to know why. Why don't you find out what ports the program is using and talk to your administrators? the ports might be specifically closed to stop people from playing games or you may be able to employ some port forwarding to get around the problem but it depednds on how the network is set up.

[Elaine]

Universites' bandwidth have been totally sucked up by p2p in the recent past. So universities have been looking for ways to preserve the bandwidth and closing ports. You should do as zachariah suggested and contact the network admin. And it might not hurt to errr... give him a little something. ;)

[Xcalibur]

My friend called his network office today and they told him that yes there is a firewall and they will not open the ports. He called back a 2nd time and spoke with someone else who said something about how they just installed some new cable(?) and not all the ports are open yet but they will be when it's fixed. What could that 2nd person have been talking about and does it sound realistic that the ports being closed may only be a temporary issue?

[handyguy]

try dslreports.com too they have tests you can do to find out stuff.

[Virgin San]

What could that 2nd person have been talking about and does it sound realistic that the ports being closed may only be a temporary issue?
If you make 2 calls to university computer admin then the chances are very good that on at least one occasion you will speak to a complete numpty who has no idea what is going on. Bitter experience I'm afraid.

[Xcalibur]

Actually, my friend just sent me a link to an article that he found where the university just set up a new network and had a lot of security issues which forced them to close a lot of ports to prevent certain viruses. Hopefully once they get those issues worked out they'll be able to open the ports back up again and that will solve his problems.

[DjSwift]

SOrry to bring this up, but i have been researching all day!

Errmm the guy next to me in can use kazaa and download anything.

Me on the other hand i cannot do jack ****!!

cannt even download anything.. It even doesnt let me check my pop3 email through outlook. i have to use mail2web for that!!

I can receive files thru MSN at a slow pace or i can download attachments from email, but that ,imits the whole point of using the internet..

WHat can I do about it ?

Im sure it can be done, coz the guy nextdoor is ok. My friends last year also could download.

I am at the university halls of residence.. please help

DJ

p.s i have turn my firewall off, I think it could be something to do with sp2 maybe ?


SO far all i can do is browse the internet. Some sites wont even load up!

Bit torrent doesnt work either..

Really silly if its like this..