Please Help! XP Networking with a twist.

[MulLa]

Hi all

Hopefully you'll all understand my poor english

I was trying to network together 2 windows XP machines via an outdated Netgear 56k modem router which has a 10Mbit 4 port hub built in. Sorry I didn't get the model number since it's at my friend's place.

I went in setup the two machines, static IP addresses, they were able to see each other in My Network Places, access shares etc. So basically 'working perfectly'.

Then my friend's children comes home and decides to play Counter Strike on their newly networked computers and found it to be really lagging. The host would work just fine but the client would just stutter every 5 seconds of play. I then decided to remove IPX/SPX from their network (I didn't put it there, someone else who tried to fix it before me did), and just leave TCP/IP in there. After this point I did test networking via accessing a share folder right away and it worked just fine very quick / responsive. Counter Strike still lags pretty bad.

Then I started switching cables around and connecting to different ports. I should really have documented it but no I didn't. All of a sudden it takes like 2 minutes to access a share folder. Ping still works fine, typical LAN response time. It's just shares that's really slow, the system would hang for 2 minutes while the hourglass is there.

What do you guys think I should try? Reinstall the TCP/IP stack? Could it be a faulty port? If it is then I shouldn't be able to ping at all.



millions of thanks in advance


ps - Ping is in the network layer isn't it?

 

[lobadobadingdong]

could be a bad nic somewhere, a bad port on the hub, a bad cable somewhere, you'll have to narrow the problem down a bit, which will be hard to do with just the two machines.

 

[MulLa]

Thanks lobadobadingdong, so you think it's hardware related problem? How can it still ping if it's hardware failure? Or am I wrong to think this way?

I could always go cross over cable and rule out all cabling and router / hub involved. If that still doesn't work then it's the NICs.

Anyone else have more ideas?

thanks

 

[MulLa]

Bump for anyone who might know.

 

[MulLa]

One last bump before I give up.

 

[masul0100]

I don't know if it will work or not but I had to manualy downgrade one PC to single duplex, when I would do a "ping /t" it would drop a packet or two every few seconds. That worked for me. Not sure what kind of hub setup you have but hope you get it figured out.

masul

 

[piasabird]

If both of the computers are XP make sure the firewall is off. On the networking part certain specific prots should be opened for XP.

Also only one computer should be the master Browser! This sometimes causes lags.
Could have a lousy NIC card.

Maybe you can find some kind of testing gear or software for lag time. One way to test is to type cmd enter at command prompt and use the ping command to check response time.

A single 10/100 switch would work better for Network games so you can utilize true speeds up to 200Mbps. The computer speed makes a difference too. Built in ethernet may not always be fast enough.

IPX/SPX may be the preferred Protocol for the game over the Internet. Sometimes on the Protocols you have to make sure on both computers that one protocol is marked as the preferred protocol so both computer use the same preferred protocol. You should always have a preferred protocol on any network where all the computers are basically the same, otherwise there may be a conversion process. IPX/SPX is from Novel, and it is good for multiple hop netwroking. Shouldnt be needed on a fast ethernet (100Mbps) network.

 

[MulLa]

Thanks for the added advice. I'll make a list of things to check over when I go to his home again. Hopefully the problem would have resolved itself just like the way it mysteriously started!!!