A strange Network Problem

[BasicCable]

I've been trying to get my Network to work properly for days and finaly decided It was time to ask for help from the pros

I have a two pc network(Both network adapters are 100mbit) with a 5port hub. Both pcs are running windows xp pro.

I have both network adapters set to 100mbit Half-duplex as my hub doesn't support full-duplex.

Ok heres my problem.

Bedroom PC= Bedroom PC to Living Room File transfers from this pc at only 0.80% of 100%(Going by Taskmanger)
Bedroom PC=Living Room PC to Bedroom Pc file transfers from this pc at 75% of 100%


Living Room PC=Living Room PC to Bedroom Pc file transfers from this pc at 75% of 100%
Living Room PC=Bedroom PC to living Room PC file transfers from this pc at 75% of 100%

What could cause my bedroom pc to transfer so slow only when you are useing that pc to transfer files from? I mean I can log on from the living room pc and transfer those same files 75 times faster? I'm not running a firewall on either pc so I'm stumped what could cause this.

 

[BasicCable]

I've tried different protocols....I tried
NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS and then I switched to NetBEUI neither seems to help with the bottleneck.

I'm only getting about 90 kB/sec....but from the other PC I can get 9mB/sec. I'm stumped on what could be causeing this.

 

[nerd4life]

have you tried taking the hub out of the qustion and hooking the computers up directly with xover cable?

maybe hub is screwy...

 

[BasicCable]

Can you get a xover cable that Is 100 feet long? as thats the lengh I need to wire my house up.

I do have a older hub In storage I can try though.(never thought of the hub being at fault) I hope Its just the hub as the old one Isn't much different then this one.

 

[rogerdugans]

Hub could be the issue...
Let me ask you this: how many protocols have you tried at the same time?

I use tcp/ip exclusively because I have seen some screwy problems crop up at times using multiple network protocols.

 

[BasicCable]

Right now I'm useing NetBEUI & TCP/IP(And I have a check In Client For Microsoft Networks & File And Printer Shareing for Microsoft Networks)before I was useing NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS & TCP/IP(And I have a check In Client For Microsoft Networks & File And Printer Shareing for Microsoft Networks)

I've tried just useing TCP/IP but I must be doing something wrong becuase whenever I don't have NetBEUI or NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS installed I can't see other pcs on my network.

Oh well I have Wensday off and I will head to storage to get my old hub out and try that out.

 

[rogerdugans]

If the network isn't working with just TCP/IP then the protocol is configured wrong and not actually being used for network transfers, one of the others is.

I always recommend just tcp/ip and for small networks (under 12 machines) using static ip addresses: static ip addresses don't get screwed up and remove one possible problem from the mix.

I would do that in any case, and if you need help figuring out what settings to use, post up! If not me, there are plenty of other people here that are even better at networks than I am and someone is sure to help.

 

[ColdMiser]

Get a new switch:

Cheapest one from Newegg

 

[nerd4life]

also, cat5 max length is 100 feet right ? maybe one computer is able to get a decent connection while the other cannot.

and ya, u can just get a normal cat5 cable and cross it yourself. all you need is a crimping tool and male ends. tester is nice to have too. think i got all mine for around 50US, been awhile though.

 

[DaWiper]

also, cat5 max length is 100 feet right ? maybe one computer is able to get a decent connection while the other cannot.

and ya, u can just get a normal cat5 cable and cross it yourself. all you need is a crimping tool and male ends. tester is nice to have too. think i got all mine for around 50US, been awhile though.

A cat5 rate max length is 100m. That's 300feet+++.
From real life:
Two friends of mine made network between their houses. They dug down more than 200m of cat5. They had to split the cable and add a switch on th middle as a signal amplifier. They couldn't do it at the exact middle, therefor one of the cables got longer than the other. After measuring they found the longest cable to be roughly 120 metres and it worked.

 

[nerd4life]

thanx =)

 

[lucidnight]

I'm haveing a problem just like the main post of this topic, but mine will only transfer at 25% of the network bandwidth. Both of my cards are 100mps full duplex cards....I was working on the problem and i noticed , in my firewall log, something that says "Conflicted ARP".

What is ARP?


Oh, and i'm using a microsoft mn-500 basestation.

 

[DaWiper]

One thing that most people doesn't think of when complaining about bad lan-transfer rates is their hd. If you transfer a 1gig file from a to b, both a's max hdreadspeed and b's max writespeed is a big factor. Nothing is stronger then the weakest link. If hd a can read 6 MB/s then max speed is 6MB/s(about 50%)unless b's writespeed is 5 MB/s, then max networkspeed is limited by this..

 

[lucidnight]

Well, you see that's the same line i get form everyone...my hd is fine because while doing some test's i have gotten about 80% of the bandwidth, but i can't seem to keep that stable. This all started around the time i upgraded the micorsoft mn-500 base station firmware. Wihile switching the firmware form it's 1.11 verison (current) to 1.08 verison (old) i get my speed back, but now always. I've tried alot of things, and i can't really tell if it's the base station or the cards. I was thinking about just getting a crossover cable and doing a direct link...but i noticed that the M$ ethernet cards are only 10 bucks a pop...so i could just buy 2 and if it doesn't work call and ye'll at the microsoft tech support ( who i have already called...and they know nothing..sigh...)

 

[BasicCable]

Didn't make It to storage today(Daughter was sick) So I'll head over In the morning.

Oh and It can't be the hard drive If you see my above first post I can access the troubled pc from the other pc and download from It at 9mB\sec.

Oh and I just wanted to thank all you for all the Ideas and help...Its nice to see everyone so helpful to someone who Isn't big on posting.

 

[nerd4life]

can a single computer over a network bottleneck the transfer rate of a hard drive ? isn't it 100Mbps vs say an ATA100 drive which is 100MBps. That would be 800Mbps, don't see how a network could bottleneck even an older hd unless you have it running as a server.

laterz =)

 

[DaWiper]

can a single computer over a network bottleneck the transfer rate of a hard drive ? isn't it 100Mbps vs say an ATA100 drive which is 100MBps. That would be 800Mbps, don't see how a network could bottleneck even an older hd unless you have it running as a server.

laterz =)

The hd can bottleneck the network if it's transferrate is lower than the maximum newtwork performance ability of your rig.
----
ATA100 is 100 MB/s bandwidth yes, but you can't find any hd's that can use all of the bandwidht.

With a modern 'new' harddisk ata100/133,sata,whatever and good os for network, and of course a rig that is able to play along, you should be able to reach and even break 90% sustained network usage...