Network switch 3

[Aussie2]

Hi Would like some some assistance in regards to a network switch .I recently bought a cheap second hand switch and with only one computer connected games lag and have a high ping I would like to run two computers a P4 3.4 with onboard gigabit lan and a AMD 1.8 with a Dynalink nic card.
I dont mind buying a new switch just dont know what to buy managed,unmanaged,etc.
These computers would mainly be used for gaming and any input would be much appreciated.

 

[LawnBoy]

lag" and "high ping" are pretty relative terms, what's the ping difference with/without the switch? There's a good chance the switch you have is fine but has not negotiated the speed/duplex settings very well. If the switch is managed be sure the port you're on is set to "auto" negotiate and so is the NIC.

Linksys makes some good 4-port hubs for little cost; with only 3 pc's do you really need a switch?

 

[stduc]

Check for bad cables or possibly a bad NIC on the PC. However I see you have a gigabit NIC. Is it a gigabit switch? Is the other machine using a gigabit NIC?

You sometimes have to set some of the parameters on gigabit NIC's to get them to function correctly on MBit LAN's.

I would be surprised if you need a managed switch. These days the amount of lag introduced by store & forward switching as against cut through is minimal. The only other reason to have a managed switch is network security or VPN's.

 

[rvnguy]

I recently bought a cheap second hand switch

Are you certian that you obtained a "switch" and not a "hub"??

A hub is like a party line and communications are not "duplexed" meaning only one item at a time i.e. send then receive.

A true switch is "duplexed" i.e. separate lanes to allow similtaneous send and receive.

For home/game use a managed switch is not required as this is generally for large corp networks and allows for remote management.

If you get a new switch or router...insure that GB transactions are supported and that connected PC's nic's also are GB enabled


rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[LawnBoy]

rvnguy:
That's not accurate. Both hubs and switches can negotiate and maintain full- or half- duplex connections. There are some obsolete hubs that can only do half-duplex, but anything newer than 5 or 6 years old can do both.

The difference is how traffic passes through them. A hub merely takes any data on any port and retransmits it to all ports. A switch keeps a table of all the NIC MAC adresses hooked up to it and only hands the data to the port with the destination MAC address. This way your pc does not see the data intended for some other pc.

 

[stduc]

Switches & Routers eliminate collisions on the network at the cost of some delay to each packet (latency). Hubs have no delay - but permit collisions which cause even more delay!

Routers have a higher latency than switches.

 

[LawnBoy]

Using the 7-layer OSI model, basically you get:
Hubs - layer 1
Switches - layer 2
Routers - layer 3

Now before I get flamed for being an idiot, these are loose generalizations, not hard-and-fast rules. The HP Procurve switches I love so dearly do layers 2 and 3, with some layer 4 functionality. But I find what I stated above to be a good framework to hold in your mind as you wade through the almost countless options for sale these days.

 

[rvnguy]

Never heard of a simple HUB that can negociate traffic.
Hubs do no processing on network traffic--they simply repeat the incoming signal to all available ports. By virtue of this there is no addressing, which you are aware of, and can only transmit or listen and not both.

Might be terminology, "switched hub", but this is technically a switch.


rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[LawnBoy]

I guess I'm not following what you're saying. You said

Hubs do no processing on network traffic--they simply repeat the incoming signal to all available ports. By virtue of this there is no addressing

and so far I agree. They can be transmitting the data out as it comes in, which is full-duplex.

 

[BadFrog]

These links should help clear some of this up:

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/networking/bridge_types.htm

and

http://www.homenethelp.com/web/explain/about-hubs-and-switches.asp

A hub is only half duplex.

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy"
Albert Einstein

 

[Aussie2]

OK
This is the new switch I would like to purchase

http://www.tp-link.com/product/show.asp?ProductNO=404

current switch is a Excel 10/100 ethernet mini switch thats all the details I have.
P4 onboard gigabit lan is set on auto sense would this be better set on 100 full duplex.
AMD has a D-link System Inc DL10050 Sundance ethernet card I have only just purchased this computer(kids fighting over P4)its currently running Linux just to see if its stable I intend to instal win xp I haven't yet connected this computer to the the switch.
The Pentium system when playing Battlefield2 has a 200 ping and often screen displays you have a connection problem then continues to run for a few mins and then is interupted again when the switch is not connected the game runs fine low ping no lag.

Thanks guys for your above posts

 

[stduc]

I forgot to mention that Gigabit ethernet requires Cat5e cable - where all 8 wires are connected. It won't connect at gigabit speeds on cat5 cable.

Autosense should work fine.

What speed is the connection reported as being?

There is no point in having just 1 machine on a network at gigabit speeds if everything else is at 100 or 10 MBps.

Sounds to me like that gigabit NIC may have an issue with that switch. Or....

Are you using the same cable? Or different cables when you use/don't use the switch. Or a different route for the cable(s). You may have some sort of bad cable/noise issues?

Could you post more details of your network? Is a router involved or are you using connection sharing? Is a DHCP server involved or are IP address's entered manually? What IP address's are you using and with what subnet mask?

 

[LawnBoy]

You guys are right, hubs do operate in half-duplex. Here's another link saying so:

http://www.duxcw.com/faq/network/hubsw.htm

I think what was misleading me is that I have a managed hub that claims to be making full-duplex connections to the NICs attached to it. While the connection may be full-duplex, I see now that the operation has to be half-duplex.

A star for rvnguy for making me re-examine what I thought I knew.

 

[rvnguy]

LawnBoy:

thanks....for checking yourself, I did not want to "flame" this issue.

It is the terminology being used loosely at fault.

Aussie2:
Here is spec's on what you currently have...It is listed as a full-duplexing 10/100 switch

http://www.cbcnz.com/product_info.p.../2588?osCsid=4fc2861d67d1af4487a612414101567c

Re-reading your post...you are not LAN partying this, but when plugged in you see delays....correct or are you playing over the connection in some fashion???

If not interacting with another machine when gaming this is not a net speed issue....more a polling schema issue where if plugged/connected it is using resources to Ack that interferes with the requirements of the game. Is this game running on Linux?? what distro/build?

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[Aussie2]

Don't think I have worded my previous posts very well so I'll try again here goes my modem which was supplied by my ISP as part of a free 512k connection deal is a Dynalink RTA/100+ router/modem network speed is 100 Mbps

If I connect my 3.4 pentium winXP SP2 to the above modem and play BF2 online(aust server) it runs without fault with all settings on high no lag low ping around 68-100.Computer has 1 gig of corsair,sata drives,high end vid card,650 watt quad 12v rail psu and runs any current game without any problems.

Now if I connect the network switch(non Gigabit) which is similar to the one in rvnguy's link but not as good with CAT5E cable(good tip stduc thanks) I then have problems as described in previous post.

OK I have brought a used older AMD system instaled linux just to test computer and have a copy of winxp on order and will instal when it arrives I would then like to connect the AMD and Pentium to the network switch so my sons can play online together.But if the pentium on its own connected to the switch runs games poorly its unlikely the older AMD is going to fair any better

This is the conclusion I have come to is buy better quality Gigabit switch and instal a Gigabit ethernet card in the AMD system.What do you Think

THANK GUYS AGAIN FOR YOUR HELP AND YOUR PATIENCE

 

[BadFrog]

Please pardon me if someone already suggested this, I kinda just skimmed over the post. Have you played with the speed settings on the NIC to see if it makes any difference? It should be set to auto negotiate by default, try forcing it to 100mb full and see if that helps. Some NIC's and routers/switches don't always auto negotiate very well.

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy"
Albert Einstein

 

[rvnguy]

Got it...I prefer to point you to some resources that should guide you into setting up with the appropriate hardware.

Throw a LAN Party with Windows XP

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/games/expert/durham_lanparty.mspx

Toms Hardware Lan Party Setup 1&2

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2005/04/20/lan_party_how_to_/

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2005/07/19/lan_party_how_to_/

Hope this assists you




rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[Aussie2]

Brought new gigabit switch and instaled gigabit nic in Amd both computer now 1.0 Ghps


rvnguy found lan party link most helpful



once again tek-tip members have put me on the right track
THANKS

 

[rvnguy]

Aussie2,

Please post back with how you get on.

Thanks

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[Aussie2]

rvnguy
Instaled nic card (gigabit) in AMD machine connected intel + amd to gigabit network switch both running great more than happy

Having trouble with AMD rebooting might start a new post