1 Jan
2007
1 Jan
'07
11:03 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I'm beginning to wonder if it's time I upgraded
my home network. The
NICs on most of the machines are 100BaseT, with the odd old machine
sporting a 10BaseT. But it's the hubs I wonder about--two old
National Semi 6-port Datamover 10BaseT units coupled together with a
10Base2 (coax) link. It's that coax that I dread replacing--it goes
between floors and snaking it through the walls was a real chore.
My DSL speed is 1.6Mbps, so I'm thinking that
there's little reason
to upgrade the setup. Am I thinking correctly or am I likely to see
an improvement in internet access speed if I upgrade?
My home network is rather different. My "data center" is out in the
shop. The network out in the shop is centered on a 1GB/Sec. Ethernet
switch, with all of the infrastructure servers hooked up to it. There's
also an earlier 10/100 switch, which supports a couple of older machines
that don't really need GigE (dedicated SETI at Home machines). My DSL
connection is 1.5Mb/Sec., and I use a nice router/firewall with a
separate seconday firewall creating a DMZ between the main home network
and the Internet. The secondary firewall connects into the GigE fabric.
There's an 802.11G (108Mb/Sec. link speed) wireless access point in the
shop for wireless use when I'm out there. The shop is also completely
wired with Cat6 cable to many drops. I have two GigE Cat6 lines, one
active, one as a spare) that run in conduit underground between the shop
and the house. In the house, there's a GigE switch, a 10/100 switch for
older machines, an 802.11G wireless access point. The wireless stuff
all uses WPA for improved security, although out there where I live, the
chances of "snoops" is pretty small. The wireless access point are
long-range devices...I can actually connect to the WAP in the house from
anywhere within about 100 yards of the house. The house is all wired
with Cat6 cable also, with lots of drops.
All of these upgrades (previously, everything was 10/100), have made a
dramatic improvement with regard to 'response' of end-user machines.
The GigE interconnect between the servers and the end-user machines. As
far as Internet connectivity goes...in networks, as in racecars, the
weakest part is the limiting factor. The T1-equivalent DSL connection
is SO much slower than any of the rest of the network, that upgrading
everything to GigE made absolutely no detectable difference in terms of
speed of access to the Internet.
So, if your main concern is Internet connectivity, leave your network
as-is.
Spending the money to upgrade really won't make any substantial
difference there. If you have any time of server-based infrastructure
(file server, media server, Email server, etc.) then upgrading the
"core" network can make a big difference in terms of response to core
network services.
If you want your Internet to be faster, spend the money to try to get a
faster connection (if possible). With DSL, the limiting factor on speed
is the distance from your home to the closest DSLAM, and the equipment
used by your ISP.
Rick Bensene
1 Jan
1 Jan
11:35 a.m.
On 1 Jan 2007 at 11:03, Rick Bensene wrote:
If you want your Internet to be faster, spend the
money to try to get a
faster connection (if possible). With DSL, the limiting factor on speed
is the distance from your home to the closest DSLAM, and the equipment
used by your ISP.
It's the fastest it comes right now--I'm over 10 wire-miles from the
CO, but Qwest bought some land from me and installed a terminus of
some sort about 400 ft. from the house (a 20'x20' concrete pad with
lots of big boxes--and a Qwest service truck tha seems to be parked
daily--on it). They tell me that Real Soon Now, they'll have 5Mb/sec
service available. "Real Soon Now" in my experience with Qwest seems
to be about 3-4 years.
Still wondering where that 42Mb/sec service is that the telcos
promised the FCC they'd have deployed in 2006. Qwest seems to be
more interested in selling me Dish TV and mobile services than
providing good net access.
The maddening thing is that there's a local wireless net provider
here with excellent pricing. I can see their transmitter tower two
hills over from my window, but they nothing pointing in my direction
nor do they plan to. And cable doesn't exist out here in the
boonies.
BTW, manually altering the setting on the 100BaseT NICs does appear
to make a significant difference in performance, although Win2K does
appear to be doing the cybernetic equivalent of passing a kidney
stone when settings are being changed.
As far as file movement between systems goes, 1MB is a big transfer
for me--I mostly move source code, executables and small data files
around.
Cheers,
Chuck
9:01 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
BTW, manually altering the setting on the 100BaseT
NICs does appear
to make a significant difference in performance, although Win2K does
appear to be doing the cybernetic equivalent of passing a kidney
stone when settings are being changed.
I have this laptop here with an Intel gigabit chipset onboard. When I
look at the speed/duplex configuration section of the driver
configuration under Windows XP, the choices I am presented with are full
auto, 10Mbps half, 10Mbps full, 100Mbps half, 100Mbps full and 1000Mbps
auto.
How come there's no 1000Mbps half/full settings? The performance
problems I'm having are when I'm connecting to a gigabit network. Will
setting to 1000Mbps auto help?
Peace... Sridhar
9:08 p.m.
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
How come there's no 1000Mbps half/full settings?
The performance
problems I'm having are when I'm connecting to a gigabit network. Will
setting to 1000Mbps auto help?
The biggest blessing of gigabit ethernet isn't 1000bps, it's a decent
auto-negotiation standard. auto/auto is a hell of a lot more reliable
between gigabit devices than 10/100 or 10Mbit, so your situation is a
little odd.
It sounds like XP has your adapter forced to something Not Right.
I'd check the MTU first, make sure you're not on a jumbo-packet network
or pushing jumbos on a 1500MTU net, then I'd try 1000Mbps/auto and see.
Not like you're going to cook anything. :)
Doc
2 Jan
2 Jan
3:38 a.m.
Doc Shipley wrote:
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
> How come there's no 1000Mbps half/full settings?
Because there's no such thing as half duplex Gigabit Ethernet. The
standard only permits 1000 full (but it does allow autonegotiation).
The performance
I'm not sure I completely agree. The standard was changed some time
ago, and where once the default was 1000 full it is now 1000 auto. The
end result of course is always 1000 Mb/s full duplex but one setting
allows for (and should insist upon) negotiation and the other doesn't.
That's a problem with some things -- we have sporadic problems with
Suns, some of which seem to do it one way and some the other[1] --
because if you pick the wrong option you get no traffic at all (as
happened recently when a telco replaced a piece of kit on one of our
Gigabit WAN links).
[1] I don't know if this is a hardware dependency or a Solaris
version/patch issue, because we (the network group) have no control over
the Suns, which are run by our Systems Group, and are, um, "a mixed bag".
problems I'm having are when I'm
connecting to a gigabit network.
Will setting to 1000Mbps auto help?
The biggest blessing of gigabit ethernet isn't 1000bps, it's a decent
auto-negotiation standard. auto/auto is a hell of a lot more reliable
between gigabit devices than 10/100 or 10Mbit, so your situation is a
little odd. It sounds like XP has your adapter forced to
something Not Right.
I agree, but it could also be a negotiation problem; we saw a lot of
that about a year ago on our student network, with Intel-chipset Gigabit
interfaces in certain new laptops connecting to 10/100 ports (other
chipsets worked fine). Typically the laptops got a connection, but an
extremely slow or erratic one. The workaround was to fix the adaptor
speed/duplex, but IIRC a recent driver update eventually improved things.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
6:43 a.m.
Pete Turnbull wrote:
Doc Shipley wrote:
I certainly wouldn't claim that the standard's perfect, much less
perfectly implemented....
I really just meant that with gigabit, as opposed to 10/100, it's
more likely a software problem than hardware autonegotiation.
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
> How come there's no 1000Mbps half/full settings?
Because there's no such thing as half duplex Gigabit Ethernet. The
standard only permits 1000 full (but it does allow autonegotiation).
The performance
I'm not sure I completely agree. The standard was changed some time
ago, and where once the default was 1000 full it is now 1000 auto. The
end result of course is always 1000 Mb/s full duplex but one setting
allows for (and should insist upon) negotiation and the other doesn't.
That's a problem with some things -- we have sporadic problems with
Suns, some of which seem to do it one way and some the other[1] --
because if you pick the wrong option you get no traffic at all (as
happened recently when a telco replaced a piece of kit on one of our
Gigabit WAN links). problems I'm having are when I'm
connecting to a gigabit network.
Will setting to 1000Mbps auto help?
The biggest blessing of gigabit ethernet isn't 1000bps, it's a
decent auto-negotiation standard. auto/auto is a hell of a lot more
reliable between gigabit devices than 10/100 or 10Mbit, so your
situation is a little odd. [1] I don't know if this is a hardware dependency
or a Solaris
version/patch issue, because we (the network group) have no control over
the Suns, which are run by our Systems Group, and are, um, "a mixed bag".
Given my experience with SPARCs in this I'd say it's hardware. I
have an e250 whose onboard HME has to be forced with one of my switches,
and won't make a link at all with another unless it's set auto/auto.
I agree, but it could also be a negotiation problem;
we saw a lot of
that about a year ago on our student network, with Intel-chipset Gigabit
interfaces in certain new laptops connecting to 10/100 ports (other
chipsets worked fine). Typically the laptops got a connection, but an
extremely slow or erratic one. The workaround was to fix the adaptor
speed/duplex, but IIRC a recent driver update eventually improved things.
Yup. I have a dual-Xeon board right here with 2 onboard 1000Mbps
ports. It attaches to a cheap AOpen switch, and won't link on boot. I
have to plug the cable into a 10/100 hub, let it negotiate, then plug it
back into the gigE switch, where it will then DTRT. 'Splain *that*
bizness, please....
Makes PXE booting a little problematic. ;)
Doc
3:44 a.m.
Doc Shipley wrote:
make sure you're not on a jumbo-packet network or
pushing jumbos on a 1500MTU net, then I'd try 1000Mbps/auto and see.
Not like you're going to cook anything. :)
I don't know, that's a heck of a high data rate, and the sharp edges on all
those 1's sure do generate some heat... :-)
6:31 a.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Doc Shipley wrote:
Oh, I forgot.
Teh IntarWeb Are TUBES!
Doc
make sure you're not on a jumbo-packet
network or pushing jumbos on a
1500MTU net, then I'd try 1000Mbps/auto and see. Not like you're
going to cook anything. :)
I don't know, that's a heck of a high data rate, and the sharp edges on
all those 1's sure do generate some heat... :-) 
12:56 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
The maddening thing is that there's a local
wireless net provider
here with excellent pricing. I can see their transmitter tower two
hills over from my window, but they nothing pointing in my direction
nor do they plan to. And cable doesn't exist out here in the
boonies.
Rent a spot on the tower, and provide your own feed. How far a path is
it? A couple of Orthogon Geminis will give you near-LOS connections up
to around 20Mbps, for somewhere in the region of $6000.
Gordon
3 Jan
3 Jan
5:54 a.m.
New subject: [OT] Network question
At 02:56 PM 1/2/2007, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
And far cheaper WiFi equipment could match the speed of the residential Internet
connection you'd likely want to pay for. (Maybe $600 total: two each of Senao
bridges, 29 dB mesh antenna, cables would reach 4-5 miles.) The easiest and
cheapest route is to ask the ISP how many subscribers they'd need to have in
your direction before they'd consider adding more equipment. Then go find
those customers for them.
- John
The maddening thing is that there's a local
wireless net provider here with excellent pricing. I can see their transmitter tower two
hills over from my window, but they nothing pointing in my direction nor do they plan to.
And cable doesn't exist out here in the boonies.
Rent a spot on the tower, and provide your own feed. How far a path is it? A couple of
Orthogon Geminis will give you near-LOS connections up to around 20Mbps, for somewhere in
the region of $6000.
1:34 p.m.
New subject: [OT] Network question
John Foust wrote:
At 02:56 PM 1/2/2007, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
That's ok with one or two computers hanging off them. As soon as the
connection get anything like busy they will have problems. Consumer kit
just isn't designed for that kind of thing.
Gordon
Chuck Guzis wrote:
And far cheaper WiFi equipment could match the speed of the residential Internet
connection you'd likely want to pay for. (Maybe $600 total: two each of Senao
bridges, 29 dB mesh antenna, cables would reach 4-5 miles.) The easiest and
cheapest route is to ask the ISP how many subscribers they'd need to have in
your direction before they'd consider adding more equipment. Then go find
those customers for them. The maddening thing is that there's a local
wireless net provider here with excellent pricing. I can see their transmitter tower two
hills over from my window, but they nothing pointing in my direction nor do they plan to.
And cable doesn't exist out here in the boonies.
Rent a spot on the tower, and
provide your own feed. How far a path is it? A couple of Orthogon Geminis will give you
near-LOS connections up to around 20Mbps, for somewhere in the region of $6000. 
1 Jan
1 Jan
1:28 p.m.
Rick Bensene wrote:
(dedicated SETI at Home machines)
[soapbox]
Might I interest you in something a little more fulfilling? The
folding at home project publishes its results and is actively working to
cure diseases caused by protein misfolding such as alzheimer's,
parkinson's, etc.
[/soapbox]
I became quite disillusioned with SETI when they dumped core a few years
ago and lost hundreds of millions of computer-hours' worth of work.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
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cclist＠sydex.com -
doc＠mdrconsult.com -
gordon＠gjcp.net -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
pete＠dunnington.plus.com -
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rickb＠bensene.com -
trixter＠oldskool.org