A Puzzle summarized

[Michael Clifford]

I'm closer to a source to find why 2 new VISTA machines bomb out in our home
office. First, this is a summary of the news entries "Oddball fix for slow
network and Internet response" entered over the last 2 weeks.

Two identical machines were purchased with Vista Home Premium. One is to
replace an aging Dell. Using XP on that machine, I consistently get 5800 to
6200 Kbs download.

When the new Gateway machines were plugged into that circuit, speeds
plummeted to almost nothing. The MS Network tool found no problems. The new
PCs were hooked in, but running 1 to 5 percent of the speed of the older
machine downside. A Yahoo page would eventually appear.

However, the upload side was almost the same (350 Kbs) for these and all
other machines on the net.

There followed ten days of tweaking, uploads, turning of autotuning and RSS,
converting to static IP, etc etc etc etc. Results were minimal. I purchased
a switch to strap off the Linksys combo Access unit, and found that, if a
cheap hub was placed between the PC and the Linksys, then the speed resumed.
Here are the figures:

Straight line to router: 20 Kbs down
Gig switch in middle 300 Kbs
Cheap hub in middle: 2200 Kbs

Here's where it gets odd. Please note the diagram of the original circuit:

[Equipment Room] Cable Modem -> Linksys Access Unit -> Short Cable ->
embbeded cable to wall and Circuit # 1 - [Office Jack] - Cable -
Hub/Switch - > PC

I revised the circuit as shown below:

[Equipment Room] Cable Modem -> Linksys Access Unit -> Short Cable ->
Switch -> embbeded cable to wall and Circuit # 1 - [Office Jack] - Cable -
Hub - > PC

I moved both machines to the Equipment Room and ran a cable from the switch
to each machine. Eureka! Full speed for both, despite that the network
characteristics of one had been extensively modified.

There's a second circuit that the electrician had put back to the office. I
tested both machines there. Same top speed.

So it appears that the wall wiring had something to do with this. Old XP
machines worked fine under with this circuit. Top speed is again attained
for the new ones if a cheap hub is placed in the in the office and the PC is
plugged into it. Only download speeds are affected.

Can anybody explain this? Would it help to replace the Ethernet controller
(on the motherboard) with a separate adapter? When SP1 finally ships, do you
think I can remove the hub?

Any help is appreciated.

Michael Clifford

 

[AJR]

Michael - very interesing - Unfortunately I have no advice, however I hope
one of the networking experts post a reply.

 

[Michael Clifford]

Looks like I've found the problem, but can't explain the cause. Recall the
network diagram:

Equipment Room] Cable Modem -> Linksys Access Unit -> Short Cable ->
Switch -> embbeded cable to wall and Circuit # 1 - [Office Jack] - Cable -
Hub - > PC

The problem was traced to the cable between [Office Jack] and Hub (or PC).

The cable was off flat design and run under the plastic rug protector. It
worked fine with the old XP PC and $30 network card, but not with the new
computers under Vista. Looks like the Hub acted as a repeater and boosted
the signal enough for it to function. That's the only explanation that I can
offer.

Now if only Vista copied files properly..

Michael

I'm closer to a source to find why 2 new VISTA machines bomb out in our
home office. First, this is a summary of the news entries "Oddball fix for
slow network and Internet response" entered over the last 2 weeks.

Two identical machines were purchased with Vista Home Premium. One is to
replace an aging Dell. Using XP on that machine, I consistently get 5800
to 6200 Kbs download.

When the new Gateway machines were plugged into that circuit, speeds
plummeted to almost nothing. The MS Network tool found no problems. The
new PCs were hooked in, but running 1 to 5 percent of the speed of the
older machine downside. A Yahoo page would eventually appear.

However, the upload side was almost the same (350 Kbs) for these and all
other machines on the net.

There followed ten days of tweaking, uploads, turning of autotuning and
RSS, converting to static IP, etc etc etc etc. Results were minimal. I
purchased a switch to strap off the Linksys combo Access unit, and found
that, if a cheap hub was placed between the PC and the Linksys, then the
speed resumed. Here are the figures:

Straight line to router: 20 Kbs down
Gig switch in middle 300 Kbs
Cheap hub in middle: 2200 Kbs

Here's where it gets odd. Please note the diagram of the original circuit:

[Equipment Room] Cable Modem -> Linksys Access Unit -> Short Cable ->
embbeded cable to wall and Circuit # 1 - [Office Jack] - Cable -
Hub/Switch - > PC

I revised the circuit as shown below:

[Equipment Room] Cable Modem -> Linksys Access Unit -> Short Cable ->
Switch -> embbeded cable to wall and Circuit # 1 - [Office Jack] - Cable -
Hub - > PC

I moved both machines to the Equipment Room and ran a cable from the
switch to each machine. Eureka! Full speed for both, despite that the
network characteristics of one had been extensively modified.

There's a second circuit that the electrician had put back to the office.
I tested both machines there. Same top speed.

So it appears that the wall wiring had something to do with this. Old XP
machines worked fine under with this circuit. Top speed is again attained
for the new ones if a cheap hub is placed in the in the office and the PC
is plugged into it. Only download speeds are affected.

Can anybody explain this? Would it help to replace the Ethernet controller
(on the motherboard) with a separate adapter? When SP1 finally ships, do
you think I can remove the hub?

Any help is appreciated.

Michael Clifford

 

[GTS]

Interesting. Thanks for the reports. I suspect the NIC in the Vista
machine may have interacted poorly with the particular (possibly marginal
quality) connection. I've seen a few occasions, for example, where a
particular machine failed to auto-negotiate a 100Mbs connection and was
running at 10Mbs, although the your download only speed issue is more
peculiar.