SiS 900 Connect Speed

**Georgexxx** · February 10th, 2005, 01:24 AM

Am running a SiS 900 PCI Fast ethernet Adapter on a ECS M830LR motherboard with an AMD Athlon XP 1900. The OS is Windows 98 SE. Connection and download speeds are very slow at 50-60 Kps on a Comcast Cable Hookup. My 9 year old Dell, 200 MHz, downloads at speeds of 350-400 Kps. Both computers are hooked up to a Linksys 4 port router, NR041. The cables have been exchanged. No change in connection speed.

Several of the lastest drivers for the SiS 900 have been installed. There was no change in speed; however, the newer drivers created more problems so I went back to older drivers. The new drivers said they were finding numerous new hardware without identification of them. There isn't any new hardware.

Short of installing a new ethernet card, I don't have anyother ideas.

Thank You

**hudsonsmith** · February 10th, 2005, 09:38 AM

Have you checked your link speed? Go into Network & Dialup Connections and check the status for that adapter. Should tell you if its connected at 10 or 100 Mbps. If the former, check your configuration settings. You could also try some of the other settings to see if they have any affect.

**D65536** · February 12th, 2005, 02:04 PM

I use a SIS900 on my motherboard and have no speed issues.

Maybe the problem is not your network adapter.

Did you check to see if you have a virus or some spyware?

**Georgexxx** · February 13th, 2005, 02:40 AM

Originally Posted by hudsonsmith

Have you checked your link speed? Go into Network & Dialup Connections and check the status for that adapter. Should tell you if its connected at 10 or 100 Mbps. If the former, check your configuration settings. You could also try some of the other settings to see if they have any affect.

Thank You for your reply. How do you check this status? I have looked in the control panel (internet & modems & networks) and not found a status check. It only says its working properly. What configuration settings are your referring to?

**Georgexxx** · February 13th, 2005, 02:43 AM

Originally Posted by D65536

I use a SIS900 on my motherboard and have no speed issues.

Maybe the problem is not your network adapter.

Did you check to see if you have a virus or some spyware?

Thank You for your reply. I constantly run virus and spyware checks. This same slow performance also occurred after reformatting the hard drive. What brand motherboard do you have? Whatever the problem is, it resides on this computer. The cables have been switched at the computer, so it has to be on the slow computer.

**Georgexxx** · February 13th, 2005, 02:47 AM

Originally Posted by Georgexxx

Thank You for your reply. How do you check this status? I have looked in the control panel (internet & modems & networks) and not found a status check. It only says its working properly. What configuration settings are your referring to?

Also checked Device Manager. The only problem found was an explanation mark on ICS. It didn't like the driver, but I couldn't change it out. I have good communication between computers. In fact, if I use the old computer to download to the new computer via the router, it downloads at the fast speeds.

**Georgexxx** · February 13th, 2005, 02:51 AM

Originally Posted by Georgexxx

Thank You for your reply. How do you check this status? I have looked in the control panel (internet & modems & networks) and not found a status check. It only says its working properly. What configuration settings are your referring to?

I also checked Device Manager. The only problem found was an explanation point on ICS. It didn't like the driver. I was not able to replace the driver from my Windows CD nor from the Internet.

**hudsonsmith** · February 13th, 2005, 02:01 PM

Why are you using ICS if you have a 4-port router? You should let router run as dhcp server to network the two computers.

To check your link speed: Control Panel\Network Connections. Select Local Area Connection. Right click and select Status.

**D65536** · February 15th, 2005, 11:39 AM

Your link speed shouldn't make too much of a difference. The maximum throughput of a cable modem is well below 10 megabits. My router pc uses a 10 megabit nic on the cable modem side and I still get stellar transfer rates.

Maybe you should try an other network adapter. Yours could be bad.

What brand motherboard do you have?

It is an ECS K7S5A, the newer version with usb2.

**Georgexxx** · February 16th, 2005, 02:56 AM

Originally Posted by hudsonsmith

Why are you using ICS if you have a 4-port router? You should let router run as dhcp server to network the two computers.

To check your link speed: Control Panel\Network Connections. Select Local Area Connection. Right click and select Status.

Originally Posted by hudsonsmith

Why are you using ICS if you have a 4-port router? You should let router run as dhcp server to network the two computers.

To check your link speed: Control Panel\Network Connections. Select Local Area Connection. Right click and select Status.

Thank You for your reply. Will try dropping the ICS next week. Usually when I try something it takes a good while to undo if it doesn't work. Right now the system does work; its just extremely slow.

Tried the procedure you outlined for checking status. I am running 98 SE and it doesn't match the configuration you suggested. There is no Network Configuration option. There is a Network, but it only has tabs for Configuration, Identification and Access. I tried Internet Options, then Connections. Right clicking LAN Settings and Sharing only resulted in a Wha'ts This message. LAN Settings provided no help. Sharing brought up an ICS page. The Connect to Internet area was blank. I could choose blank or Dial Up Adapter. Choosing Dial Up Adapter was tried several days ago, and then I couldn't get online at all. Tried several things but couldn't get back to blank. Finally replaced the Registry. My old and fast computer has an ethernet card noted, but I couldn't figure out how to get the hardware noticed by the dialog box. Tried the New Hardware route and adding drivers. No luck. The second dialog box on the page has Connect to Home Network, the choices are blank or the SiS 900. However, I can't choose the SiS 900; there is an error message, An Adapter must be chosen before saving. So I can't choose anything but the dial up adapter, and this doesn't work. So it seems like I am boxed in. There has to be some way to replace the blank or Dial Up Adapter with an Ethernet card, but I haven't figured it out.

Thanks Again for your suggestions, Georgexxx

**Georgexxx** · February 16th, 2005, 03:02 AM

Originally Posted by D65536

Your link speed shouldn't make too much of a difference. The maximum throughput of a cable modem is well below 10 megabits. My router pc uses a 10 megabit nic on the cable modem side and I still get stellar transfer rates.

Maybe you should try an other network adapter. Yours could be bad.

It is an ECS K7S5A, the newer version with usb2.

Thank You for your reply. My motherboard is 2 1/2 years old. It has been slow the entire time; only I didn't know it. I had a problem, and had to use the old machine. That is when I found out a had a problem. A neighbor had been telling me for some time about his download speeds. I jus figured it was my connection.

Am trying everything else before going the new hardware route. It is a possibility.

Thanks again for your reply. Georgexxx

**NooNoo** · February 16th, 2005, 07:17 AM

I think a bios flash might be in order here

ECS have no fewer that 14 bios updates for this board! Two of which mention timing and stability problems. The latest one is at the top of the page and it appears to be for both the older version and the newer version of the board.

Please follow the instructions carefully... interrupting a bios flash for any reason will result in a useless motherboard.

**Georgexxx** · February 17th, 2005, 12:34 AM

Originally Posted by NooNoo

I think a bios flash might be in order here

ECS have no fewer that 14 bios updates for this board! Two of which mention timing and stability problems. The latest one is at the top of the page and it appears to be for both the older version and the newer version of the board.

Please follow the instructions carefully... interrupting a bios flash for any reason will result in a useless motherboard.

Thank You, NooNoo for your suggestions. I am a bit nervous about trying to download the flash bios. It looks like a good way to mess up your computer. The ECS site gives lots of warnings.

If you download one and want to go back to your original version, how do you do that?

How do you know that a M830LR is the same as a K7S5A? I couldn't find that correlation anywhere. The M830LR is not listed on the ECS web-site. I can't even find the model number on the motherboard. Yes, I have looked at the ECS site for where the model number is; I still don't see anything. I don't want to dismantle the computer to find the model number. I got the ECS M830LR from running Belarc. The manual does show a M830LR, but it doesn't show the ECS name.

Thank You for your help. I will have to put this project on hold for awhile. Will be visiting your country next month, and I am looking forward to it.

Georgexxx

**Georgexxx** · April 2nd, 2005, 07:22 PM

First, thanks to everyone who responded to this problem. It hasn't been solved, but I will post it in the Networking Forum under the title, Connect Speed.

There was a lot of good advice given. Some of it I implemented, but didn't feel comfortable doing a flash bios unless I could go back to the original configuration.

It turns out that the motherboard was a PC Chips motherboard, and not an ECS as shown by Belarc. PC Chips and ECS may or may not be owned by each other or a single third party. The boards may be made at the same plant. However, this doesn't make them identical. ECS did not offer any help by saying it wasn't their board. They didn't mention PC Chips. PC Chips was helpful in pointing me to their flash bios sites, and they were responsive. I still don't have the answer on how to keep my current BIOS firmware if the new one doesn't work out. They didn't have my exact model number listed. They had M830L listed but not the LR model. The R stands for Riser; the phone modem is not built in, but put on a riser on the motherboard. So the M830L model was the one of interest.

Moved away from the problem by buying an ASUS A7V8X-X motherboard. The problem continued. Went to a reformatted hard drive with only the updated Win 98 SE OS, Zone Alarm and AVG installed. The appropriate drivers were also installed for the motherboard. Still slow connect speeds. Took the ethernet card from the old computer installed it on the new computer. No increase in speed. Bypassed the Router and went straight to the cable modem. The 8 year old Dell still downloads 5-7 times faster than the 2 1/2 year old one. The new computer downloads at 3-5 MB/sec while the old one downloads at 15-19 MB/s. A friend several blocks away gets 15-19 MB/sec on his computer also using Comcast

Thanks again for your responses, Georgexxx

**audigger53** · May 20th, 2005, 12:20 PM

How do you know that a M830LR is the same as a K7S5A?

I have one each of the boards at my house. The only difference is the Bios chip data. The boards have the same chip set and when the part numbers are hidden and the Bios chip removed, you can not tell the difference between the boards. I have swapped the Bios chips between them and they work.
IMO That makes them closer than 1st cousins.<G>

Back to your speed problem, there were tweeks for Win98SE that would increase the buffer size for data throughput. They were set rather small by MS for modem(phone) use and not setup for DSL/cable. The only ones I would recomend were in .zip format and had a restore .zip as well. I'll check when I get home for the URL.