Phoneline network brings system to a crawl... help!

[RKM]

I am using the Linksys Phoneline 10M Network cards and as soon as I boot my older
system and the two phoneline network cards try to communicate my KT7A-Raid
system slows to a crawl. I can access the my KT7A-Raid system from my old Tyan S1598-C2 K6-III 400 no problem... move files, access all shared drives, and Sisoft Sandra says the network is working just fine from the Tyan side of things. All the time this is happening the KT7A-Raid system is running like a 286.

My Abit system is as follows:
KT7A-Raid
1 Gig T'bird unlocked running rock solid stable at 9 X 133 = 1.2 Gig.
256mb (2 X 128) PC133 SpecTek Cas 3
3dfx V5 5500 AGP
SB Live! Value
Linksys Phoneline 10M Network card
Siiq PCI / usb controller card (couldn't get VIA usb to work)
30 Gig IBM GXP75 Deskstar (master on ide1)
Samsung 48X cdrom (master on ide2)
USRobotics 56K Ext. on Comm 1

The Live! Value is in PCI slot #2,
The Linksys network card is in PCI slot #5 with onboard Raid chip disabled to give it it's own irq,
The Siiq pci/usb controller card is in PCI slot #6.
Everything has it's own irq except the Live! Value card with shares with acpi... doesn't seem to be a big deal as I am not suffering from any dreaded pops and crackles.
Linksys tech support had me on the phone for over an hour installing and un-installing then re-installing drivers and finally concluded that my home has bad phonelines... so after hanging up I moved the two systems side by side and used their phoneline to connect the two systems... same problem... Tyan system works fine, Abit system crawls.
Linksys tech support have not yet returned my call or email after finding this new fact out but when I did have him on the phone originally I questioned him about client/server settings he blew me off because it is a "peer to peer setup and it doesn't matter which is client or server, you don't have to worry about those settings". I don't know much about networks so I had to go by what he said but I'm really starting to wonder now.
If anyone can help I'd really appreciate it.
TIA,
Robin

 

[Eug]

Have you tried a USB NIC? By the way, why are you accepting faulty USB on that motherboard. It seems odd having to buy a USB card for a USB-endowed motherboard.

Have you tried ALL the driver settings (for the NIC)?

 

[RKM]

Well, I used the Siiq controller card because I had it kicking around here anyway and I got tired of troubleshooting a known problem with this motherboard. I tried all the tips on usbman.com and in the massive Abit FAQ compiled by Paul Howland... nothing seemed to cure the usb problems that I knew were a possibility before I purchased the motherboard. Especially since I already owned an HP usb scanner which are notorious for not working with the VIA usb implementation (at least on this mobo).
I don't really know much about networks as this is the first one I have tried to set up and due to living in a townhouse (Abit system on top floor, Tyan system on bottom floor... many stairs between) I am forced to use the Home PNA method. I followed the directions that came with the cards religiously and when that didn't work I phoned tech support and I already related my expereince with them (if I get ahold of them again I will follow their suggestions).
I was hoping someone who had a similar experience or someone very knowledgable in this area could tell me what needs to be done to get both systems working as they should be. As I stated earlier, I have no experience setting up a network so any help in plain english would be greatly appreciated.
TIA,
Robin

 

[RKM]

I forgot to answer your other query... no, I haven't considered usb nic but only because of the problems I have had with usb and the Home PNA systems show a significant slow down when using the usb port (from the research I have done reading on different hardware sites that have tested them... I can't point you to specific articles as this was a while ago and I just got around to purchasing the Home PNA cards this week).
Robin

 

[Eug]

Well, I can't really help, as my systems work fine. (I don't own any Abit though. )

Yeah you're right about the USB. I've read that they only run at about the 2-3 Mbps range or slightly faster, significantly slower than the PCI nics. But at least they work fine usually apparently.

 

[RKM]

Well, for future reference or for those who may be interested I solved the major slow down problem I was having with my home PNA Linksys cards. After stripping out windows, formatting, and doing a fresh install with only generic VGA drivers for my V5 loaded I tried the Linksys phoneline card in every pci slot and the system continued to crawl along like a 286.
It was about 3AM. and as a last ditch effort before giving up and going to bed I tried disabling ACPI as outlined in Paul Howland's faq (well, there's a link there that points you to someone's web page that explains how to do it). Soon as ACPI was disabled and windows found all my hardware all over again the system now snaps along at the pace I expect.
Problem solved and Lanbridge Internet Sharing works as well (I'm using it now from my client PC).
I have now used modbin6 to alter my bios on the Abit board so that I can disable ACPI in the bios as it should have been in the first place. Good-bye to those cool cpu temps. but I now have a LAN that works great.
Thanks to those who tried to help.
Robin