Nightmare network problem

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February 23rd, 2004, 05:14 PM
gutted

Nightmare network problem

Please help - this is driving me nuts!!!

Am connecting to home network via laptop. "Home network" is a 512k upstream ADSL broadband through a Solwise SAR-703a modem/router. We have a 3Com 10baseT small office hub which links 3 PCs to the modem/router. Cabling is CAT5 throughout.

Laptop is an IBM T40, and I'm using the on-board wired NIC "Intel(R) Pro/1000 MT Mobile Connection". The routerwas fairly cheap and nasty (at the time) so we're manually configuring our IP as DHCP doesn't appear to work.

The problem is that the internet connection from this laptop is incredibly slow. Painfully slow, infact. As slow as when we used to share a 33k modem between 4 people - no joke :( At first I thought it was my housemates hogging bandwidth with P2P apps, but now am not so sure. I unplugged everyone else from the router and it didn't help all that much (although there was a slight improvement). Worse still, it seems that I can only download small chunks of info in any one session. e.g. I downloaded a manual for the router earlier - it took about 20 attempts to get the whole PDF file - and it's only 1.4MB. It downloads a small bit then seems to hang. I try again and it downloads some more then hangs again.

It has worked better than this before, but not 100% sure what happened. One thing I did do which may have messed it up is to write a .reg file to set my manual IP for when I get home from work. It didn't work as expected so I didtched it. Connection has worked since then, but am wondering if that screwed stuff up (will replace the original backup and see if it helps). Meantime I have reinstalled NIC but with no joy.

It's killing me. I can barely open eBay :(

Anyone got any ideas????

Cheers,
Dan.
February 23rd, 2004, 05:29 PM
gutted

More info that I forgot to mention:

when downloading a test file (or trying to at least!) such as the router manual, best speed I can ever get is in the region 3.5 KB/sec. It fluctuates around this sort of speed before it eventually stalls. The amounted downloaded each test is always different - sometimes 50kb, sometimes 200kb. If anything, it seems to be related to amount of time the connection is held open for (some timeout somewhere? A timeout of about 10 seconds?!?)

It seems as though I can only get a maximum of 2 active connections at any one time. If I try to download the manual 3 times, only 2 of the downloads actually start - the 3rd (and subsequent) attempts sit there waiting until I cancel on of the original 2 - then a new download springs into life.

I tried taking my laptop to a different network port, but I get similar (lack of) performance which I think means that the problem must be related to this laptop rather than the patch cable or network port.

I uninstalled/resinstalled NIC but no effect - I haven't yet tried to reinstall TCP/IP, maybe this would help?

I have up-to-date AV software since this is a work laptop. I killed all the work apps that open a port (such as Veritas, AV policy orchestrator etc) and although this seemed to help in the short term it didn't have any sort of laxsting effect. I'm using "ActivePorts" to see what's going on - nothing suspicious as far as I can tell (I was looking for worms or something that might be coming from my PC).

The other guys in the house don;t notice any probs in terms of connection speed.
February 23rd, 2004, 05:37 PM
Gollo

what kind of nic are you uusing? pcmcia or builtin? have you tried reinstalling the drivers for the nic? Another thing you might try that has helped me before in a simmilar situation was to drop the connection from auto to 10mb full duplex. not sure if this will work but worth a shot.
February 23rd, 2004, 05:48 PM
gutted

Hi Gollo,

I'm using the built-in NIC. I've been playing around with the duplex - the best setting is 10Mbps full duplex as you suggest, but even with this setting it's still painful :( I tried half duplex too, but no better :(

Dan.
February 23rd, 2004, 05:51 PM
Gollo

try going over to broadbandreports.com and running their tweaks utility. It should point you in the right direction anyways
February 24th, 2004, 04:35 PM
gutted

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gollo

try going over to broadbandreports.com and running their tweaks utility. It should point you in the right direction anyways

I checked out the tweaks on dslreports (or broadbandreports - same thing) and made a couple of adjustments. Nothing major, but unfortunately it didn't help. I'm beginning to wonder if this is a problem of compatibility. I can't see how, but can anyone tell me if it's possible for some hardware in my laptop to be incompatible with either the hub or router?

The router is 3com home/office 10baseT. The modem/router is a Solwise SAR 703a. This laptop uses Intel(R) Pro/1000 Mobile Connetion NIC (built-in).

The same network card works fine at work - massively fast download speed, and no connections dropped. I came home early today and did some more tests - I unplugged everyone from the hub then physically restarted the modem/router (e.g. reset the power). This helped. While everyone off the network, connection speed a bit better. But still not much.

I know that my 2 other housemates can use the net ok - I tried to download a bandwidth monitor utility (less than 1MB). I was trying for ages, but the guy who lives in the room below downloaded it in seconds. I reckon that if both other guys had used up ALL bandwidth then they would have to be in a similar situation as me regards accessing and downloading from the internet, right?

So my laptop NIC works fine except when on this network.
My network point and patch cable have been ruled out as I tried a different one and still no joy.
I don't think it can be bandwidth because the other guys would be affected too (and they don't appear to be).
Even with no-one else on the network (and everyone physicaly unplugged from hub) the speed is still sluggish.

So it has to be related to a combination of my laptop hardware and the network hardware. Right? (If anyone can see any other test I can do, let me know!)

If that's the case, what can it be???? There are a whole hosgt of advanced settings for this NIC that I could play with but I don;t know what any of them do so I don't want to totally screw it up.

Also - I reinstalled drivers for the NICs. No improvement.

Dammit!!!!!!!!
February 24th, 2004, 05:33 PM
Low_Level_Owl

Have you tried copying a file from your roommates P.C.?

This may point you in the right direction as to what may be causing your problem.

Maybe I.P. information is incorrect? Have you tried to re-enable DHCP?
February 25th, 2004, 04:59 AM
gutted

I took my laptop to one of my housemates' rooms and it was still not as fast as I would have liked. Although at the time there was someone else on the net and I know for sure that the other guy uses Kazaa. A good test would be to disconnect everyone again and then try from a different room. Either that or plug the modem/router traight into my laptop instead of the hub...

Is it actually possible to set up priorities or bandwidth restrictions using software alone? Is there a way I can test this? I got hold of a bandwidth monitor last night, but it only monitors my personal bandwidth usage (which is pretty much nil from home) - any way I can check all available bandwidth on the home network?
February 25th, 2004, 07:20 AM
confus-ed

Quote:

Originally Posted by Low_Level_Owl

Maybe I.P. information is incorrect? Have you tried to re-enable DHCP?

I want to know how its resolving the requests if you made it static addressing ... that means its using netbios ? & broadcasting ??? - so no wonder its slow ?
February 25th, 2004, 07:32 AM
confus-ed

Quote:

It seems as though I can only get a maximum of 2 active connections at any one time. If I try to download the manual 3 times, only 2 of the downloads actually start - the 3rd (and subsequent) attempts sit there waiting until I cancel on of the original 2 - then a new download springs into life.

That's an IE limit thingee isn't it ? only two concurrent downstreams allowed, that's ie 6.0 methinks - you fix that by using a download accelerator thingee or googling for the reg tweak ... but that ain't why its slooooooow ... :)
February 25th, 2004, 08:36 AM
Matridom

Quote:

The router is 3com home/office 10baseT. The modem/router is a Solwise SAR 703a. This laptop uses Intel(R) Pro/1000 Mobile Connetion NIC (built-in).

I hope you don't have 2 routers. What happens if you connect one computer directly into the DSL modem?

also remember, sharing with 4 other people means that you will getting dial up speeds 512/5 = 102, 102 /8 = 12 K/sec, that's assuming you are all using the bandwidth EXACTLY the same
February 25th, 2004, 08:38 AM
Matridom

Quote:

Originally Posted by confus-ed

That's an IE limit thingee isn't it ? only two concurrent downstreams allowed, that's ie 6.0 methinks - you fix that by using a download accelerator thingee or googling for the reg tweak ... but that ain't why its slooooooow ... :)

Default for IE is 4 i believe......
February 25th, 2004, 08:47 AM
gutted

Cheers guys. I'll look into the reg tweak on Google. (As it turns out I can get a max of 4 connections from work, but apparently only 2 from home. Odd. But as long as it's "normal" that's cool).

As for static IP, I've specified my own IP, specified the subnet mask, specified the default gateway as the router. The DNS servers were supplied by the ISP so I entered them in the appropriate field. Do I need to do anything else?

Confus-ed - what's the deal with netbios and broadcast? Perhaps that's where I'm going wrong?

Matridom - we've only got the one router which is linked directly to a hub. When I clocked the download speed it was only my PC connected to the hub and then the hub to router. Possibly it was internet congestion between our IP and the test server - I'll run some more tests. I'm wondering even if maybe our landlord has sneakily changed the connection speed down and not told us. (Although the modem/router web control panel identifies the line correctly as 578/288 (or whatever)).

Here's another thing that seems a bit odd. If I hover the mouse over the NIC icon in systray, the number of sent packets is ALWAYS higher than that received. That's got to be wrong, surely?! I just checked it here (at work) and now received is higher than expected (which seems right).
February 25th, 2004, 11:43 AM
Gollo

Quote:

Originally Posted by gutted

Cheers guys. I'll look into the reg tweak on Google. (As it turns out I can get a max of 4 connections from work, but apparently only 2 from home. Odd. But as long as it's "normal" that's cool).

As for static IP, I've specified my own IP, specified the subnet mask, specified the default gateway as the router. The DNS servers were supplied by the ISP so I entered them in the appropriate field. Do I need to do anything else?

Confus-ed - what's the deal with netbios and broadcast? Perhaps that's where I'm going wrong?

Matridom - we've only got the one router which is linked directly to a hub. When I clocked the download speed it was only my PC connected to the hub and then the hub to router. Possibly it was internet congestion between our IP and the test server - I'll run some more tests. I'm wondering even if maybe our landlord has sneakily changed the connection speed down and not told us. (Although the modem/router web control panel identifies the line correctly as 578/288 (or whatever)).

Here's another thing that seems a bit odd. If I hover the mouse over the NIC icon in systray, the number of sent packets is ALWAYS higher than that received. That's got to be wrong, surely?! I just checked it here (at work) and now received is higher than expected (which seems right).

DING DING DING!!!! we have a winner. If your router is working properly put IT as your gateway AND dns and you should see a pretty good improvment. What kind of ping times do you get on say google.com from your computer compared to one of your mates computer?
February 25th, 2004, 12:00 PM
gutted

Cheers Gollo - I'll give it a try.

I'm pretty sure the user guide (for the modem/router) tells us to specify the DNS servers, althoughit's definitely worth a try. Bear in mind that even though it may be working properly the router is still very cheap and nasty (or at least it was cheap when we bought it). Don't get me started on *THAT* - it's still something I'm trying to forget about. An extra £20 between 3 of us - you'd have thought it was no contest, right? *sigh*.

Anyway. I've also got another NIC to test this evening, too, so various things to keep me occupied.

Thanks for suggestions - I'll post back to let you all know...
February 25th, 2004, 12:32 PM
gutted

Damn. I just double-checked the user manual, and it definitely *does* say that we should manually specify the DNS as supplied by the ISP (although it offers an d "emergency" DNS server which I will try instead).

Even so - got to be worth a try changing it, I guess. It's almost unusable as it is so it can't get all that much worse...
February 25th, 2004, 01:21 PM
Gollo

Quote:

Originally Posted by gutted

Damn. I just double-checked the user manual, and it definitely *does* say that we should manually specify the DNS as supplied by the ISP (although it offers an d "emergency" DNS server which I will try instead).

Even so - got to be worth a try changing it, I guess. It's almost unusable as it is so it can't get all that much worse...

Ok you have a router/modem that connects to a router/hub(switch) right? the router/hub(switch) should be making the connection to your isp for you. meaning that anything you would input in the computer should be input into the router (ie dns servers for said isp etc). Then all computers that connect to router/hub(switch) should either be setup using dhcp from router/hub(switch) or statically pointing at router/hub(switch) for dns and gateway.

If possible turn off the router feature of the router/modem
February 25th, 2004, 02:37 PM
gutted

Resolved... (watch this space :)

Cheers Gollo. Although it looks to be resolved now... I borrowed a PCMCIA NIC and dongle and this different card (with exactly the same settings as before) works fine. I now get a reasonable download speed (between 15 and 20 kbps) and the download doesn't cut off anymore. Just to confirm, I then swicthed back to the onboard card (with exactly same settings) and tried again - back to old, terrible connection and downloads just not happening.

Not sure if it's related to some extra configuration that I don't know about (since there seems to be a whole load of advanced features when compared to my PCMCIA card) - or perhaps it just doesn't like static IP ?? (I spoke to another guy at work who has same laptop and he reports a similar issue when using static IP).

Cheers to everyone for all the help!

Dan.