Upgraded my company's old arse network yesterday!

[mboy]

Ok, so yesterday I went in to work to change over my 75 node network from 10mbps hubbed to switchedd 100mbps. 2 hrs to disasseble the mess my predecessors left. Racked all the switches, set up all the patch cables so I could trouble shoot nice and easy if I have to. Went from (using qcheck) 8mbps avg to 25-26mbps. I know it is a big jump and very noticeable, but should I be getting more?

 

[ScottMac]

Yes, you (probably) should be. Something like 70-90 is more typical, maybe even to the mid 90s, for a 100M Ethernet (full duplex).

Is the cable and ALL of the infrastructure components rated for Categry 5 (or better)?

What kind of horsepower did you have running QCheck? A PII/200 may have problems keeping the pipe filled....
Try it on a couple different pairs of endpoints, and try it from both directions (A-->B, B--->A).

Make sure the computers were set for 100/full. You may have to reboot the system to get the proper registration. Sometimes "Auto" mode doesn't work, and one end is set for full duplex and the other half.

If one of the endpoints you tested was a/the server, it may have been busy doing other things.

Check your switches for "Features" like "flow control." Some switches will start applying "backpressure" at fairly low bit rates.

If you end up putting on a "Sniffer," remember that it's only going to show you the traffic local to that port, plus ALL the other broadcasts/multicasts happening on the switch.

...and one for Spidey: Check your Spanning Tree setup. Perhaps you have a loop somewhere (if that's the case, the ~26Meg is doing pretty good).

This is all pretty generic stuff, but since you didn't say what it was you installed, that's what we're stuck with for guessing.

Good Luck

Scott

 

[spidey07]

yeah, that does sound pretty low. you should be seeing 80s-90s.

What kind of switches are installed and how are they connected? What is the network card standard, or is there a hodge podge of every NIC known to man?

Scott has a good point about PC speed as well. I don't think it would be spanning-tree related. BUT if this is 9 12 port switches all strung together then we have problems.

 

[mboy]

Maybe it is the PC's I am runing it on. One is a seldom used file server, the other is a PII266 (all our computers are old and week. Many running win 95 and plenty of P 100-P166mhz. I did the network bandwidth test with Sandra 2002 and I what I got was very close if not exact to what it says for 10/100 full duplex (9848KBps).
The switches are basic (5) D-link 24 port layer2 unmanaged switches. Budget wouldn't allow for anything more. Definately notice a big increase in speed tho!
Oh, hodge podge of NICs but all tests were done with 10/100 on auto. Switches are connected by cat 5 patch using port 1 as uplink. Cat 5 is wired throught the building!

 

[SaigonK]

As stated before you should see 80-90 even as high as 95 at times.
I would check into the cable, perhaps see if your ethernet cards are full duplex capable.