Topic: Ethernet woes

[rhys]

I don't think my combo NIC is restricing me to 10Mbps.

I put 2GB of data between the combo and the RJ45 only hub and transferred the lot in 50 minutes or therabouts. When I wanted to transfer via the hub, it was transferring very slowly and claiming it'd take 665 minutes to transfer. Obviously, I halted the transfer and pulled the hub out in order to get a faster data rate.

The hub I have is a "Plastic Palm", which seems to have been made in China. Watching data tranfer through it is only marginally different from water torture. Having said that, I suppose that when I have all the data transferred, it'll be OK for everyday usage (better be - it cost £30).

I have Putty. I haven't figured out how to use it yet though.

Speaking of external modems, I saw an elderly modem in a junkbox going for £2. Would that be a good one? As far as I know, seriel data transfer is very slow. Would it be as fast as my internal 57k modem?

Rhys

[Dave Liquorice]

> Speaking of external modems, I saw an elderly modem in a junkbox
> going for 2. Would that be a good one? As far as I know, seriel data
> transfer is very slow. Would it be as fast as my internal 57k modem?

Depends on what it is. You need to look for a modell number and maker then search the web for that particular modem to find  its capabilties. It could be anything from an ancient 2400bps one to a more modern one that will be  the same as your  internal 57k.

Cheers
Dave.

[Per Smith]

Hi Rhys

Usually, BNC based cards ONLY runs at 10 Mbit/s, because that's the maximum transfer rate for those networks. This is also the case for the combo cards. I have never seen a bnc combo card capable of running 100 Mbit/s.

Theoretically, you should be able to transfer 2GB of data in about 34 minutes, when you're running at 10 MB/s. However, this will probably only happen if you're transferring a single file of that size, because your disks in both ends will have to either find the next file, or create the next one.
Generally, you should be able to transfer 1 MB per second in a 10Mbit/s network. (Up to 10 times as much on a 100 Mbit network)
The 665 minutes calculated were probably because there were a lot of small files (in the beginning of the file transfer) causing the disks to move around for finding, creating and storing the files.

In Putty, you write the IP address of your server, and choose the desired protocol.
I would advise you to use ssh not telnet, because ssh uses encryption of the data.
You will need to enable remote access via ssh in the server-manager before you can use Putty.

External modems are also 56k these days, so you will see no difference there.

Best regards
Per Smith

[rhys]

That's interesting, Per. I was actually transferring 3,000 files of about 1mb each. I thought my 3Com Combo card was 10/100 not just 10. In any case, if it was 10 then how come the speed increased so dramatically when I removed the hub (rated at 10)?

This is an interesting problem. I can't get an RJ45 only card for my PC as I don't believe anybody sells ISA cards any more. That'll have to wait until I upgrade my PC (which my server was supposed to be had it not been an inch too tall to fit under the table). The upgrade is planned to be a case of retaining the old drives but replacing the case, ram and other gubbins (It's all AT).

I ran across some interesting networking problems. These are more to do with Windows than anything else. Persius doesn't seem to realise when I've deleted an I-Bay from Zeus and keeps displaying it in Network Neighbourhood. Persius runs Win 98. I suspect that Win 98 is a bit defective in the networking department. I notice also that Norton AntiVirus seems to keep crashing on every other boot ever since I mapped Zeus as a network drive. I dislike Norton anyway but it's paid for for about the next week. After that, I'll be after a new AV product. Are there any suitable for use on Windows that'll also scan Linux drives?

How do I transfer data between I-Bays?

Rhys

[del]

rhys wrote:
>
> That's interesting, Per. I was actually transferring 3,000
> files of about 1mb each. I thought my 3Com Combo card was
> 10/100 not just 10. In any case, if it was 10 then how come
> the speed increased so dramatically when I removed the hub
> (rated at 10)?
A hub (not a switched hub) shares its 10Mbps between all portd, so if 3 devices are using itbthey only get a third of the 10 Mbps = 3.33 Mbps, a switched hub on the other hand gives a full 10Mbps (or 100 Mbps) to each user, that's why they cost a bit more than a normal unswitched hub.
>
> This is an interesting problem. I can't get an RJ45 only card
> for my PC as I don't believe anybody sells ISA cards any
> more. That'll have to wait until I upgrade my PC (which my
> server was supposed to be had it not been an inch too tall to
> fit under the table). The upgrade is planned to be a case of
> retaining the old drives but replacing the case, ram and
> other gubbins (It's all AT).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ISA cards are available from Netgear but they are still only 10 Mbps, if you get a switched autosensing 10/100 Mbps hub you will be able to use both 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps at the same time + you will get a full 10 or 100 Mbps at each port
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> I ran across some interesting networking problems. These are
> more to do with Windows than anything else. Persius doesn't
> seem to realise when I've deleted an I-Bay from Zeus and
> keeps displaying it in Network Neighbourhood. Persius runs
> Win 98. I suspect that Win 98 is a bit defective in the
> networking department. I notice also that Norton AntiVirus
> seems to keep crashing on every other boot ever since I
> mapped Zeus as a network drive. I dislike Norton anyway but
> it's paid for for about the next week. After that, I'll be
> after a new AV product. Are there any suitable for use on
> Windows that'll also scan Linux drives?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Right click the iBay in network neighborhood and choose delete (I think, it's been ages since I used win98)
2. Try AVG for virus scanning in windows, it will also scan your network drives and it is free with free updates and it can be set to update automatically each day, it also checks incoming and outgoing email in Outlook, Outlook Express and Eudora for viruses. It can be downloaded from http://www.grisoft.com
Most people on this forum appear to use RAV to install on the SME Server, I downloaded ClamAV for my test server but have been unable to get it working yet.
If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be grateful!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> How do I transfer data between I-Bays?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Could you not map both of the iBays as network drives?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hope this helps,
Del
>
 
> Rhys

[rhys]

Hmm. Interesting so really a 10mbps hub is really only a 5mbps hub is I have a server and a PC online?

It looks as though there's not much point in my getting a switch at all. When I've transferred the data (which I can do with a direct cable connection), the amounts to transfer won't (initially anyway) justify spending another £35 on a hub-replacement.

Interesting. The AVG site says AVG won't work with network drives.

The I-Bays. I have two and I tried to transfer between them but it was dreadfully slow. How can I do it, using putty (which now works well).

Rhys

[Per Smith]

> The I-Bays. I have two and I tried to transfer between them but it was dreadfully slow. How can I do it, using putty (which now works well).

If you have ever used Norton Commander for DOS, you'll find an equivalent in Midnight Commander in SME.

Type "mc" at the command line, and go from there.

You'll find your ibays in /home/e-smith/files/ibays/. Simply cd into those directories, and do the copying/moving there.

Hope this helps
Per Smith

[del]

rhys wrote:
>
> Hmm. Interesting so really a 10mbps hub is really only a
> 5mbps hub is I have a server and a PC online?

Take a look here: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/lan-switch2.htm
If you don't believe me!
>
> It looks as though there's not much point in my getting a
> switch at all. When I've transferred the data (which I can do
> with a direct cable connection), the amounts to transfer
> won't (initially anyway) justify spending another £35 on a
> hub-replacement.

Your choice
>
> Interesting. The AVG site says AVG won't work with network
> drives.

Just used it!
It won't automatically scan network drives, you have to manually start the scan or get the paid version, I use it everyday, no problems.

>
> The I-Bays. I have two and I tried to transfer between them
> but it was dreadfully slow. How can I do it, using putty
> (which now works well).

Already answered by Per
Cheers,
Del
>
> Rhys

[del]

rhys wrote:
>
> Hmm. Interesting so really a 10mbps hub is really only a
> 5mbps hub is I have a server and a PC online?

Take a look here: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/lan-switch2.htm
If you don't believe me!
>
> It looks as though there's not much point in my getting a
> switch at all. When I've transferred the data (which I can do
> with a direct cable connection), the amounts to transfer
> won't (initially anyway) justify spending another £35 on a
> hub-replacement.

Your choice
>
> Interesting. The AVG site says AVG won't work with network
> drives.

Just used it!
It won't automatically scan network drives, you have to manually start the scan or get the paid version, I use it everyday, no problems.

>
> The I-Bays. I have two and I tried to transfer between them
> but it was dreadfully slow. How can I do it, using putty
> (which now works well).

Already answered by Per
Cheers,
Del
>
> Rhys

[del]

Sorry about the double post, windows was a bit slow and I clicked  "post" twice!

[Ray Mitchell]

rhys wrote:
> Persius doesn't seem to realise when I've deleted an I-Bay from Zeus and
> keeps displaying it in Network Neighbourhood. Persius runs Win 98.

In Win Explorer click on View/Refresh.
The browsemaster controller takes a certain time to update the various network resources available (from a minute to many minutes).
From your earlier posts it sounds like your NIC IP's might be set appropriately but perhaps other aspects of your NIC setup are not eg WINS etc etc. This was hinted at in earlier replies (I think it was Terry).
I did suggest an automatic way to do all this in an earlier post but you decided to do it all manually.
The way you have it set up your PC's may not be updating from the browsemaster.

> I suspect that Win 98 is a bit defective in the
> networking department.

I think the problem is how you set up your Windows networking, not Win98 itself ! See above.

 I notice also that Norton AntiVirus
> seems to keep crashing on every other boot ever since I
> mapped Zeus as a network drive.

I use NAV all the time to scan PC's and the server ibays mapped to drive letters (automatically and manually), never had a problem. Again something must be odd with your setup, I would  guess it is network related again and NAV is not finding the information it wants/needs.
 
> How do I transfer data between I-Bays?

This should also be possible using Windows Explore/Network Neighbourhood.
Under the server name zeus you should see the ibays listed, just copy the files from one ibay to the other. If you have the ibays set to allow Internet access then the files will be in the /ibayname/files folder.

Remember that the ibays need to have correct permissions (ie group membership) set up for the local PC users to be able to access files on those ibays.

Regards
Ray

[Ray Mitchell]

Sorry. I see the ibay file copying issue was resolved.
Ray

[rhys]

Thanks for the info everybody.

I've decided to look for an external modem. I saw one in a junk box in town going for two pounds but unfortunately it was a 32k modem - and it needed a mains power supply. I'm running out of splitter plugs and getting tired of cables draped everywhere.

I saw a USB modem that has the Conexant chipset. I like the idea of USB modems as they need no external power supply. Would I be able to use this modem with SME. My new board has a USB socket (Persius doesn't have USB).

The modem I'm thinking of is http://www.linden-computech.com/pc/ef56k.htm

Rhys

[Dave Liquorice]

> I've decided to look for an external modem. I saw one in a junk box
>  in town going for two pounds but unfortunately it was a 32k
> modem -  and it needed a mains power supply.

Good move as you want to know if the modem has hung up or not.  (*). Probably not hard to find a suitable wall wart for it but more  than  likely at 10 times the cost of your modem...

> I'm running out of splitter plugs  and getting tired of cables draped
> everywhere.

I know the feeling about the amount of spagettie that falls out the back of a PC. Oh and splitter plugs are not really a good idea even  at the low power levels of computer kit, better to get reasonably prices (ie not the cheap of the cheapest) 4 or 6 way socket strips.

> I saw a USB modem that has the Conexant chipset. I like the idea
> of USB modems as they need no external power supply.

From what I've seen USB and Linux is a bit of a nightmare. It really depends on someone having made  a driver for your particular bit of kit, you might be lucky you might not. Hold out for a proper serial external modem if I where you.

(*) Hum, don't "privacy adapters" have an LED in them?  Maybe  an internal plugged through one of those would do all the signalling you need (on/off line).

Cheers
Dave.

[rhys]

Thanks for the warning about seriel versus USB modems.

From my experiences, I find USB is a bit of a nightmare whatever O/S you're using. I was very happy using NT4 on my PC until I needed to copy data from a Compact Flash card. Then I had to use Windoze 98 becuse it had USB support so I gained USB but lost NTFS.

I did find a seriel modem going for £10 but the PSU didn't work so the guy went rooting around for one. Then he couldn't find the keys to his display cabinet!

Personally, regarding cables, I find my elderly AT PC has the mains cables sorted out beautifully - the monitor draws its power from the back of the PC PSU. My ATX box doesn't but that's OK as I don't use a monitor on it. The reason I'm using splitter plugs is because they work and because I don't intend to have more than two items plugged in simulteneously.

I'm not sure whether privacy adaptors have LEDs. I've never used one. I tend to pick the phone up and listen when I want to check whether it's in use. That means I have to get up off my derriere and walk to the other end of the room to check the phone.

I'm not sure which to get - a secondhand modem for £10 or a new one for £35. Any suggestions?

Rhys