2 xp pc's on 1 network - both DSL hogs, can they share equally?

[twg66]

We are running 2 XP computers on 1 DSL line using Linksys firewall router. It seems pc 2 becomes severely effected when pc 1 downloads a file. Both machines want to take full advantage of the available resources, thus hampering the other machines online performance.

I noticed the router light flashing on pc 1 the other night, but it was turned off. I unplugged the pc 1 cable, and pc 2 lost its network connection completely, although it was still directly plugged into the router.

Is ICS causing this problem? It has been disabled on both machines, although it doesn't help to do so.

There is no file sharing going on between these machines, so it would be fine if they didn't recognize each other.

One machine is XP Home, the other is XP Pro.

Any insight would be welcome.

 

[dakota81]

Curious, is your router a hub or a switch? Hub's are dumb machines (but very cheap and fast) that sends all data out on all ports. A switch is smarter (though more expensive and little slower) and for the most part only sends data out to the port it is supposed to be going to.

If your router is indeed a hub, I would suggest changing it with a switch.

 

[bcastner]

First, your connection to the ISP is shared by the machines. If PC #1 is downloading at 90% of your connectiion bandwidth it leaves only 10% free for PC #2. If I am in the shower and my son flushes the toilet, I will notice it.

Second, the flashing from the turned off PC likely means that they have WOL (Wake-on-LAN) or some wake-on heartbeat monitor active on the lan adapter and system. This can be turned off in the BIOS of the machine.

Disconnecting the machine should not make you lose a connection on your machine, other than from static electricity affecting the router or a loose/poor cable end on the router for one of its connections.

 

[twg66]

We have a Etherfast Cable DSL Firewall Router 4 Port switch / VPN Endpoint.

I appreciate the comments, and understand that when a toilet is flushed you feel it in the shower - but what I want to know is if there are any particular settings on XP units which would allow a closer to equal sharing of the connection. Being on a switch (in my mind - which once again isn't over flowing with network information) should help regulate and share the connection. (so should XP)

From my experience: The lights on the router stay on when a pc is turned off. The first of three lights on the router (Link/Act) only flashes when a pc is sending/receiving packets to/from the internet. It doesn't make sense that a pc which is turned off would have activity on the Link/Act light. PC #2 at the time was online and active, yet the Link/Act light on pc 2 was in-active. I unplugged the network cable for pc 1 and pc 2 lost its connection. Our equipment is new, sitting in a designated spot, and after problems with our provider the first few weeks - has secure and grounded connections.

Common sense, which certainly doesn't always apply to computers - says that the two systems have some form of connection (why I pondered Internet Connection Sharing).

It wasn't always like this with the two systems, and we don't know what could have changed. NOW, when one pc is online - and the other opens even a large web page - the first one almost halts its activity for a few moments, until the web page opens on the first pc.

It seems to me that this hogging problem should be able to be manipulated. And, once again, any insight is welcome.

Thanks - Tim

 

[Jontmke]

I don't think so, but the only way you could would be thru the router\switch. Look into the manual. But I am not sure these are able to do that.

Jon

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. (Bertrand Russell)

 

[twg66]

Thanks everybody for responding to this message. I'll dig deeper into the instructions on the switch. And, of course - there is always the classic re-installation of both the OS and or the router software.

Tim

 

[jpm121]

twg, here's the gig:

XP isn't going to manage such things for you -- as far as it knows, on the other end of the wire is "the internet". It doesn't care if it's a Linksys, a Cisco, a satellite dish, or a modem. All it can do is send and receive stuff as fast as the wire will support.

Each machine takes this approach.

The Linksys router's job is to make sure that the plugs in the back get the correct data coming from the WAN (internet) link.

To a certain extent, it will do some balancing between the two -- the nature of IP packets is that they're rather small and the router will do what it can to squeeze some of PC #2's packets in and out mixed in with PC #1's packets.

Having said that, if PC #1 is downloading a gigantic file, it is naturally going to bog down the whole connection. It's the same as if you were downloading a huge file and tried starting another download on the same PC -- after awhile, both of them would slow to where they were equally sharing the bandwidth.

Now, if PC #1 is grabbing a huge file and #2 tries to do some surfing, it's not going to split your available bandwidth equally between the two of them -- that would be silly, because #2 is just looking at web pages = much less data moving.

PC #1 will slow down a tiny bit from time to time, so PC #2 can get its data. PC #2 is going to be a bit kludgy, because it is sort of squeezing past PC #1's data.

There is hardware available that does what you want -- it's generally made by a company called Cisco and prices start near $1000.

 

[madonnac]

For XP, one way to limit (note this is a very general way, and doesn't always work how it pretends to) is using the Quality of Service protocol

on both machines:

Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc

Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Network -> QoS Packet Sheduler

Double click on Limit Reservable Bandwidth, set it to Enabled, and set the percentage to 50%

Note that if you are using file sharing programs, by limiting their bandwidth to 20% of the available bandwith, they should still allow the other computer to perform reasonably well (overhead from replying to searches contributes to the bandwidth of these programs, but that normally isn't included in the transfer figures)

 

[bcastner]

madonnac,

Your Group Policy change would do nothing at all. For several years there has been the persistant claim that 20% of your "bandwidth" was reserved by QoS, and could be regained by setting this value to 0. You can set it to 99 without making any difference to most Windows applications, and no difference to P2P applications like Kazaa, eMule, Piolet, etc.. Microsoft finally wrote a KB article on exactly this issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q316666

"Correcting Some Incorrect Claims About Windows XP QoS Support
There have been claims in various published technical articles and newsgroup postings that Windows XP always reserves 20 percent of the available bandwidth for QoS. These claims are incorrect."

It is interesting to see the Black Viper site discuss this issue. (Blackviper.com is one of the oldest sites dedicated to "tuning" XP services). "Provides traffic control on a network using IPSEC and applications that support QoS, and have an adapter that supports it. The QoS Packet Driver installs by default on any TCP/IP connections. I recommend uninstalling it if it is not needed on your network. As far as I can tell, you also need an ACS Server (Provided with Windows 2000 Server and Advanced Server) for the QoS Packet Scheduler and Applications to request the needed bandwidth. Since my network is not straining under any load, this is rather pointless. You may require this service to be placed on Automatic if you use Windows Media Player or NetMeeting. Take note: Some people (as I did before I completed extensive research on this) reported that QoS uses 20% of your bandwidth and does not allow any activity, regardless. This is false." See:

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/service411.htm#QoS_RSVP

 

[bcastner]

Here are some free to modestly priced software solutions to shaping bandwidth:

Net Limiter: free beta. Nags after 30 days but keeps working.

http://www.netlimiter.com/

Net Peeker: P2P people like this one. Has a lot of features.

http://www.net-peeker.com/index.htm

Bandwidth Controller:

http://www.bandwidthcontroller.com/

 

[twg66]

Greetings all,

Thanks everyone for taking the time to respond to my question(s). I find the reading to be very educational as well as interesting.

jpm121 - ~I am familiar with Cisco - we have about $7,500 worth of their equipment where I work -- wish I had that kind of dough for home use.

bcastner - thanks for the input and the links, much appreciated. I May try one of the above.

One question I have would simply be this: Will my problem continue if I increase my DSL line size OR - if I switch to cable? In other words, If these machines HOG IT - it probably won't make any difference if I am on 386K or 1.5MB - will it? So going larger pipes may not solve the hogging problem, but may help for simple surfing and game play?

Thanks again -
TWG66

 

[bcastner]

Depends on the applications used.

I am told that people regularly fill T1 pipes and 6 mbs. links using IRC, newsgroups, AOL mail-based file sharing and BitTorrent.