Why is win2k so so poor at networking?

[Fingers]

This is really silly, I thought win2k was designed for networking. But its the slowest networker of all the op systems.

In fact its totaly useless. 23 computers with win2k on all pc's, I had to take 2k off them all and go back to 98 as the database was being corupted due to the slow speed the network was writing data to the server.

Even at home my 2 pc network is slow to the point of unusable with win2k.

What has gone wrong in the networking with this system?

Please dont tell me you need a super pc to run 2k as this is just not true. My home pc's are a p3gig with 390 meg this is not enough to get the network running well.

I dont think 2k is any good at all for business use. Which is crazy as this is what its designed for.

[ken257]

W2K's networking is much faster then W98. The other day I had a 4 gig file I captured with my All in Wonder Radeon that I needed to transfer to another box. The vid cap machine runs 98. Upon starting the file transfer it estimated that it was going to take about an hour and a half to complete. Not having that much time I took the drive out and stuck it a W2K machine as a slave that had the side cover allready off. The transfer at that point between 2 W2K machines took about 5 minuites!

Check your networking setup there is something very wrong if W2K is your holdup.

[n2]

Fingers... you got problems man

dont blame 2K ... no way in hell does ANY W9x beat it.

you have some kind of problem stemming perhaps from the install? as you notice, it's largely different from 98
perhaps your familiarity to one, is carried to the other and lost?

i'd recommend a good book and some study time to learn how to properly configure the install and the network itself.

FWIW, this ain't criticism, i'm doing the same thing right now.
i know this OS is far from what i'm used to, and i'll learn this thing before i even open it.

good luck to ya man... and me too :)

[Weazel]

Actually what you write doesn't make much sense....what os is the server running? I've never seen data get corrupted because it was written too slow, more so when it is too fast.
What kind of server is it? Is it a domain controller? file server?

[Paiynn]

Are those 23 machines going through switches? Any more than 4-8 boxes and a hub isnt going to cut it. Also verify the machines are running 10/100 cards. I've timed in my office transferring files from workstation to station. A 30mb file takes about 4-6 seconds. This is using 10/100 cards through 10/100 switches mind you. My same systems before were going through 10b2 and 10mb cards through 10mb hubs, and I was lucky if I could even copy a 50mb file across the network without it dumping the file.

[Fingers]

The os is win2k pro on the work stations and the server has advanced server win2k. The server is a file server for a data base Weazel but I thought I had covered that.
The 23 pc's are all going through a hub. And this should not cause any probs at all. As all was fine when all pc;s where on 98.

The whole network was running fine with win98 on all pc's. You could transfer any amount of data (gigs of data) quickly. All very stable with no troubles.

There is definatly some sort of network prob with 2k. Even when just going to My Network Places and brousing the N/W pc's it is taking a life time. A network should be an extention of your pc's h/d's and should be as snappy as the h/d on your own pc. This is not so with win2k, there's about a 5 sec delay to eventualy conect to another pc and view thier data.

The coruption was most definatly caused by win 2k. Before 2k was instaled there were never any coruption problems in 4 years. As soon as we put win98 back on the coruption prob stoped.

[Shadow ÒÓ]

not blaming it on 2k, but not gonna say the hub isn't the problem either. My network ran much slower on a hub than it did on a switch. Trust me and all the opinions above....something is wrong as 2k is superior to 98 for networking.

gonna move this to networking as you may get better responses there.

[FRANK]

Not being a network guru myself I have to say that moving to WIN 2K for me was a snap. Granted I only have 5 machines on this network, but the difference is noticeable. WIN 2K identified the nic's and practically sets the network up. Although I did have some problems installing it on an older socket 7 machine, probably a hardware compatibility issue, still using 98SE on there.

I changed from a hub to a switch and saw an immediate improvement. Now the other machines, running various incarnations of WIN 98/98SE/ME/2K, have become virtual extensions of each other machine.

Since you have no problems with WIN98SE and have seen a problem after moving to 2K, I would think that would indicate a configuration problem. Check to see that you have the appropriate 2K drivers for the nic's. Also check that you have the proper configurations for protocols etc.

How much other activity is going on at the same time through your hub? Monitor the status of the hub when moving large files and see how many collisions are occurring. My bet is that the red lights are on just about full time.

I agree with the above posts concerning the hub vs. switch debate and think that you should reconsider your position, as the switch is much faster and more reliable. The slow-downs you're encountering with WIN 2K appear to be caused by an underlying problem. But the switch would help, provided everything’s configured correctly.

Good Luck!

[n2]

thats why i'd never use a hub.

ROUTER AND BUILT IN SWITCH BABY!!!!

[YMAN]

Win2k Is a very good at networking!

It could Be the NIC(s) or the Hub(s) in my opinion. :rolleyes:

[Fingers]

??????????

Uterly confused now

When all the pc's had win98 on, the network was working fine and dandy, and has been for years.

Now that win2k is on all the pc's are you telling me the network hardware and the pc's are no good?

As I just cant see where you can go wrong when doing a fresh install to every pc then setting the network. In fact it nearly does it all for you.

Possibly I have a very bad win2k CD.

[oc jason]

Correct with a clean install and setting the network all should go well, thats IF you set the network correctly, which dont sound like u did. Start again and try to cover all angles . I have no idea where to start as i dont use a home network but something is definatley hosed

[rugby]

WIn2k networks very fast. Now, not being a networking genius for windows I will suggest a few generic networking things to check out:

1) try slapping a switch in to replace the hub. I know you had win98 installed and it worked fine with the hub. Just try it and see what happens.

2) Install Ethereal (http://www.ethereal.com) and monitor your network. See if there are MASSIVE collisions occuring in your network.

Try these two things out and I'll explain my reasoning. WIn2k may be BETTER and FASTER at networking but it just might be more finicky. Hubs don't divide up a collision domain (each nic sends out broadcasts to find servers) like switches do. My theory is that 23 pc's on a hub broadcasting every 20-30 seconds may throw off your networking.

Another thing to look for it auto-negotiating. If your workstation isn't autonegotiating to 10half for the hub under Win2k pop a 10/100 switch in and then go from there. I've seen slow network transfers that have been the fault of a switch that forced 100full instead of letting nics auto-negotiate properly. Setting the switch to autonegotiate fixed ALL problems.

Keep in touch and let me know how this works if you choose to try these out.

[dugans]

I have also had no problems with win2k networking other than getting used to the differences in configuration from NT and 9x.

Windows 9x networking support is really pretty dismal compared to the other two! The one big advantage it has is with older hardwareone of my old 3com cardsthat I have used for years (forget model #, but its an old isa) worked fine in 9x and NT, but has NO driver for 2k. I used a couple of generic drivers, and a "test" driver that 3com released but wasn't supporting to no avail.

I would check on the nics drivers for win2k- Win2k should be FAR faster than 9x!

[Fingers]

Switches and routers..........********.

If the network was running fine on 98 with a hub, Then the prob is with 2k if I now need Switches, Routers and a host of other new and expensive hardware.

I know I'll just change all the work stations to 1.4 gig 516meg monsters. Fit switches and routers. Rewire the whole office. That should sort it.

In the real world where offices dont have **** loads of money to throw on hardware, things are a little different.

Where talking about workstations with 64 meg, celeron 300's. also 3 pc's with p 90's which had to stay with win95.

Edited by Forum Moderator
Newbie_Doo

[rugby]

Are your nics auto-negotiating properly?

I gave you some things to try and how did they work out for you?

[oc jason]

*edited*

Fingers PM me if you need any further help-ill do what i can

[Kingslayer]

Question fingers? Are you running DHCP and active directory on the server?

[Fingers]

Warning duely noted Jason


The nics are all on auto IP and auto DNS

DHCP is running.

As for Active Directory. I am looking into this at the mo. The Primary DNS suffix was set at blank (nothing in the white box if you know what i meen) Plus the check box for " change Primary DNS suffix when domain membership changes " is checked.

Am i right in thinking The primary DNS suffix should be the same as my domain name? Or am I barking up the wrong tree there.

I cant change things to much with the hardware at the mo rugby but I will try this Ethereal when I get a chance, Cheers.

[Newbie_Doo]

I have edited and/or removed a few of the posts in this thread. Please, let's keep to the issue of solving Fingers' problem and remain polite to each other here.

Anthony

[rugby]

Fingers, I'd like to apologize for myself and other members who may have said some dumb things. We just got defensive when you got upset. We should have known better, especially myself. I know networking fairly well, I'm just not an expert with win2k server/client environments. I've used win2k pro on laptops and workstations, but have never set up the server. Did you get any support with your purchase? You might be better off looking elsewhere if you need desperate help right now. Not saying leave, just saying this might not be the right place to get some immediate help.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

[oc jason]

Obviously you know what u r tlaking about.....way more than mw o this issue, but it seems that you have all the stuff you need to runit correctly. I hope you get it that way you get the speed that you deserve!

[Paiynn]

-.+
.0
.0Originally posted by Fingers
The coruption was most definatly caused by win 2k. Before 2k was instaled there were never any coruption problems in 4 years. As soon as we put win98 back on the coruption prob stoped.

I had this same problem with a medical billing database for a customer. I ended up having to store the DB on a FAT partition instead of NTFS. The problem was the software was tested on FAT and they hadnt ever worried about it running on NTFS. Gotta love archaic crappy software!

[Kingslayer]

It depends on how your network is setup on whether something should be in the DNS suffix. You can run a server without DNS and yes, that entry would be blank.

1. What type of network do you have? Sounds like you don't have a hybrid.

2. Are all your computers LAN or do you have remote computers on WAN?

3. Has your server been promoted to a domain controller?

4. Do you have a T-1, 3, or fibre incoming and do you run IIS?

5. Who ran your cable? And did they leave the pairs twisted?

[mr00bill]

First off, my home network:

-Linksys 4port cable/dsl router (DHCP enabled)
-both comps using 10/100 NICs
-1 comp = win98, other = win2k

I have no idea what it is, but the win2k machine is causing a big slowdown in network performance. It takes 8-10 seconds for the one running 98 to appear in network neighborhood on the win2k machine. And it takes about 10 seconds to transfer 1MB! The worst part is, I installed win98 on both machines, and its more like 10seconds to transfer 10MBs! And this would be fine except for the small fact that 98 is sh*t compared to 2k. Theres gotta be a way to fix this... please??? any ideas? (both comps are good, a PIII and P4) Also I know the networks going at 100Mbits. (displayed on the router)

[mbentley]

Yes, Windows 98 does have bad defaults for broadband internet connections.

Without changing some settings, it will be slower than Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

And slowdowns may be a sign of received packets being corrupted and packets being resent.

haha wow, you do realize this is a 8+ year old thread, right? :D

*edit: i didn't look at the dates myself. i only noticed when i saw shadow's avatar as i haven't seen him around in quite a while. at least not in the parts of the forums i hang out in.

[Mr.Guvernment]

AHHA, damm! thread revival award of the year, almost century goes tooo!