Bizarreness, Sponsored by Fedora Core

[CodeDragon]

It seems that I'm having some odd problems with my Linux box, which essentially boil down to this: I have a 100Mb network. Between Windows boxes I can typically get approx 70Mbps throughput on an un-loaded link. Between my Linux box and any other box on the system I can get, at best, 3-5Kbps throughput, even on a direct (x-over) link.

Network Diagram Here (http://www.codedragonstudios.org/~sozjvp423rki/images/network.jpg)

I've tried playing with route, and I've noticed that setting my Windows box as the default gateway for all traffic does improve matters (though I can't really give you a benchmark measure of how much. All I can say is that the 9MB file that was taking ~45mins to copy from the win box to the lin box moved in about ten seconds). However, it only improves things between those two boxes since once this is done my Linux box can't resolve any other host names for some reason (time to batten down the hatches and switch to static IP addresses and update my hosts.conf, methinks).

Any ideas are much appreciated.

CD

[Stalemate]

In practice, hubs are "slower" than switches, but they should not be this slow.

You mention that communications with the WinXP Box is OK if you set it as the default gateway. From the look of your setup I'm guessing the Win2003 server and laptops is probably a test lab, but if it is not, then Win2003 could act as the gateway/DHCP server.

But I'd look into the Fedora Core's NIC performance, to start with.

[Gollo]

Does it browse the internet fine? Also I'm assuming you are using samba to connect to the M$ machine. What version? How about if you use say winscp (http://winscp.sourceforge.net/eng/) and copy files from the linux box to the windows box? Same speeds? faster? It sounds to me like a samba issue and not a nic issue IMHO. Post back.

[CodeDragon]

Does it browse the internet fine? Also I'm assuming you are using samba to connect to the M$ machine. What version? How about if you use say winscp (http://winscp.sourceforge.net/eng/) and copy files from the linux box to the windows box? Same speeds? faster? It sounds to me like a samba issue and not a nic issue IMHO. Post back.

It browses the net fine, but given that I'm used to speeds of 2-3Kbps as standard on my connection I wouldn't notice any slowdown.

I've tried transferring files using winscp, pscp, ftp, http and Samba and I get all the same results. In fact both pscp and winscp crashed when trying to transfer files, and any FTP client will keep reporting "Server not responding" for several seconds between files. Not sure of the Samba version, it's whatever came with Fedora (3.x I think) as I haven't really played with it all that much.

[Gollo]

Have you patched/updated the system yet? I think fedora has something similar to the redhat network update client don't they? Anyways I would check to make sure that the nic drivers that are installed are the proper ones for said nic (ie their are several different versions of the tulip and realtek drivers). What kind of nic do you have and when you lsmod what module shows as attached to it?

[CodeDragon]

Have you patched/updated the system yet? I think fedora has something similar to the redhat network update client don't they? Anyways I would check to make sure that the nic drivers that are installed are the proper ones for said nic (ie their are several different versions of the tulip and realtek drivers). What kind of nic do you have and when you lsmod what module shows as attached to it?

I haven't patched yet, but I've had an unpatched version of Fedora installed on another machine with the same card with no issues, so I don't think it's a driver problem.

The nic is a 3com 3c595. When I lnsmod I get the module 3c59x.

I'm going to try running a basic windows install image (I still have my old hard drive for that machine, so it's a straight swap job) on the system tonight to see if it's a card issue. I'll keep you posted.

[CodeDragon]

So, I spent this afternoon fiddling with my truculent Fedora core box:
1) Stuck old image of Windows XP back on. Network fine and working full speed.
2) Stuck Mandrake 9.1 on. Ditto.
3) Re-installed Fedora. Same problem as before.

I've tried updating and (after waiting several hours) I've seen no improvement. The drivers are the latest version (I've updated those too). Now I'm completely stumped.

Might go and download Debian now...

(But any ideas are still welcome. I hate being beaten by a computer)