From what you said: Your network is something like this.

My initial feeling is that the Netgear is not switching the traffic but sending it all to the ADSL router across the 100Mbit link where it is being switched.


Try it with both PCs connected to the router.

In reply to a post by MHC:

From what you said: Your network is something like this.

My initial feeling is that the Netgear is not switching the traffic but sending it all to the ADSL router across the 100Mbit link where it is being switched.


Try it with both PCs connected to the router.

Good idea, I'll try that, I should get speeds closer to 100Mbps?.

Regarding the network diagram (I'm impressed), yes initially that is my setup, but I unplug the router from the Netgear gigabit switch once the DHCP server on the router has assigned the IP addresses to the PCs. The printer is connected to the router so it also isn't part of the switched network once I disconnect the router.

Maybe I should try assigning static IP addresses to the PCs and never have the netgear switch connected to the router before I test? Or perhaps the PCs would retain the previous IP addresses dished out by a previous DHCP session?

Maybe I should try assigning static IP addresses to the PCs and never have the netgear switch connected to the router before I test?

or even use a crossover cable between the two pcs, with no switch

In reply to a post by ggremlin:

Maybe I should try assigning static IP addresses to the PCs and never have the netgear switch connected to the router before I test?

or even use a crossover cable between the two pcs, with no switch

Good idea, but not sure how to configure static IP in WinXP - is it via the lmhosts file (to map host names to IP addresses) and the TCP/IP properties under the network connection dialog?

In reply to a post by joconnell:

Good idea, but not sure how to configure static IP in WinXP - is it via the lmhosts file (to map host names to IP addresses) and the TCP/IP properties under the network connection dialog?

It's easy to configure static IP addresses under WinXP -It's done via the 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)' properties as you have already suggested.

N.B. You do not need a crossover Ethernet cable to connect 2 x 1Gb/s NICs directly to each other - ALL 1Gb/s NICs are Auto MDI/MDI-X capable.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

N.B. You do not need a crossover Ethernet cable to connect 2 x 1Gb/s NICs directly to each other - ALL 1Gb/s NICs are Auto MDI/MDI-X capable.

Thanks for the info, that'll save me time!

you may even be able to leave xp to get a 169.254.x.y address on each machine, and its autodiscovery to resolve names.

In reply to a post by MHC:

From what you said: Your network is something like this.

My initial feeling is that the Netgear is not switching the traffic but sending it all to the ADSL router across the 100Mbit link where it is being switched.


Try it with both PCs connected to the router.

Did that and got 88Mbps consistently so it looks like the gigabit switch might be the problem. Next step, try direct connection between PCs.

That is about what I would expect.

No being familiar with Netgear but is there a possibility you have put it in "Bridge Mode" which means it just acts as a bridge between the Router and remote devices and does not switch locally?

Probably teaching you to suck eggs - but is DHCP off in the Netgear? Are all ports set for Gbit, Full Duplex?

Certainly if PC to PC gives say 250Mbit or above - there could be limitations on disk access which would slow the connection, then you can be confident that the NICs are in reasonable condition.

What if you power off everything, power up the Netgear, wait a minute or two, plug in te two PCs and boot them. What IP addresses do they get? Can they communicate and at what speed.

Hmmm.

I have a GS605 too.

Or it would be more accurate to say "I had".

It replaced an FS108 8port 100Mbit switch and I had hoped it would increase the speed of large file copies on the LAN. Unfortunately I couldn't see any significant increase in speed, and did see a few unexplained oddities. I took the GS605 out and put the FS108 back, pending further investigation (which isn't likely to happen for a while).

Coincidence?

In an ideal world, two GBit-capable NICs and a suitable GBit switch will use "jumbo frames", which allows more data per ethernet packet and thus cuts down the proportion of overhead processing. So there should be a benefit from faster wires, and a benefit from fewer packets. Ideally. But if I remember rightly, for this to work requires MTU tweakery of the kind not much seen since BTwholesale built their core network wrong...