slow network hub?

[Sunny129]

my friends and i recently bought a Linksys 10baseT network hub so the four of us can play games together over the network. the apartment complex we live in already has 256K ethernet connection to the internet, but with hundreds of people in the complex online all the time, it still seems like we are connected using 56K fax/modems...pretty sad, huh? anyways, back to our network hub...when one of my roomates sets up a server in Rogue Spear, it takes the rest of us to at least 60 seconds to bring up the multiplayer menu in the game. it then takes us at least another 60 seconds to join the server (the only server on the metwork i might add, seeing as how its just the 4 of us plugged into the hub). sometimes our connection attempts fail, which is beyond me. i dont understand why it takes so long for our systems to locate the one and only server on the network we are plugged into when there are only 4 us of on the network. the pings must be incredibly low. the farthest person from the hub is me...i use a 50 ft. cable, not that that has anything to do with our connection problems. does anyone have any idea why it takes so long to detect other systems and servers on the network when the only 4 systems on the network are less than 100 ft. from each other?

 

[Tsaico]

I would first say that it a few things. First, I would look to the machines, I was running a PII400 oc'd to 450 with 64 MB RAM. I played on a similar network (four comps on a switch) and we had to wait a while, though not 60 secs, more like 45 or so. When I punched up the ram to 128 it lowered the load time by 10 or so secs, and then when I got to 256 it got even smaller. I then got a pIII 700 and now we wait perhaps ten or so seconds. If your attemps fail, that could be a timing out problem, caused by bad lines, incorrect protocols, or cheap NICs, and/or a really cheap hub. Try pinging everyone and see who the lagger is and work from there. But the best is to make sure your system is twice what they suggest. It fixed all of our problems... Good luck

 

[Sunny129]

thanks for the advice...now that i think about it, one of my roomies has a P2 400 and only 64 MB SDRAM. another has a P3 667, but only 63 MB SDRAM, and the other one has a P3 600 and 128 MB SDRAM. i would think that the first two are the only ones slowing the connection rates, but like i said my system also takes a good 60 seconds to detect the server and another 60 seconds to connect to it (assuming my first attempt to connect doesnt get rejected...which IMO should never happen on a network hub with only four systems less than 100 ft. apart). my system is a P3 700e @ 1050 on a CUSL2 w/ 256 MB PC133 rev3 SDRAM. so why is my system taking so long to find the server and log on?