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Thread ID: 21459 2002-06-26 14:34:00 XP slow file retrieve from XP server gaxxa (666) Press F1
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57505 2002-06-26 14:34:00 I have a small network with an XP server and a combination of 95/98/ME/XP computers attached

The XP computers are connected at 100mbs and the earlier & older (ie slower) 95/98/ME computers are connecting at 10mbs

If I pull up a word doc from the server on the non XP machines it flicks up almost immediately, when I do the same on the XP machine it takes noticeable seconds to load to screen

any ideas why?
gaxxa (666)
57506 2002-06-27 05:00:00 Gaxxa,

I'm wondering if you could give some more information?

How are the machines connected to the server? Through a hub? What sort of hub? Do they all connect on one hub or do the XP machines have a different hub? How many computers are there in total?

Just a few bits like that...I'm not sure if it'll hold a solution there in but it might help :)


Callum
Callum Hey (283)
57507 2002-06-27 05:10:00 Well, depending on the afe of your PC's that might make the difference also, like transfer times between the HDD's and network card or something. I can connect my laptop to a 933Mhz and transfer a 4Meg file in a matter of seconds, but to my older "Jukebox" PC (75Mhz) it'll take about 40 seconds as it only reaches about 96-112KBPS transfer rates, so what are the specs of some older machines, and does this happen only between certain OS's, like XP-95 or ME-ME or 98-95 etc....
Hope that's shed a bit of light on it
Jo
Chilling_Silence (9)
57508 2002-06-27 05:21:00 Check what he wrote, Jo :)

He says there that the older machines work fine and fast, but the XP machines are the ones that are slow

so the problem is XP-XP, not the others :)

Callum
Callum Hey (283)
57509 2002-06-27 07:05:00 Are all the PCs running the same antivirus software with the same settings? This can impact performance.
If you use network neighbourhood, can the XP PCs browse at the same speed as the W98/ME PCs?
If you copy a Word document to the W98 PCs and open it from an XP PC, is it any faster than opening the document on the XP machine which is acting as a server for the workgroup?
Marty2001 (421)
57510 2002-06-28 01:14:00 thanks for replies so far.

Let me give a bit more info as I left room for some assumptions first time

I bought 3 brand new (fast as hell) machines about 2 months ago with xp small business version op system on them

One I put under the table in the corner as a dedicated 'server', the other two are used by 'ordinary' Microsoft Word users.

there are 7 other users with machines from 1-3 years (much lower spec'd than the new XP machines) old running variously 95,98 or ME.

The network runs thru a brand new hub (bought at same time as the XP machines 2 months ago) which can run either 10mhz or 100mhz connections 'auto detect'

the server and two XP machines (according to the hub red indicator lights) are connecting to the hub at 100mhz, while the old machines are connecting at only 10mhz

the network is running under ipx/spx as XP appears to insist on this as the 'default' protocol

hence my puzzlement when an old machine running Word loads a .doc from the server it comes up almost instantly, whereas the same .doc (not at the same time) loaded to one of the new XP users can take 20secs

kind of the reverse of what I had expected when I upgraded old to new

any help appreciated
gaxxa (666)
57511 2002-06-28 01:16:00 oops forgot one point, machines not running antivirus software gaxxa (666)
57512 2002-06-28 01:29:00 If you are using a hub and not a switch, then the network traffic may well only be 10 Mb as it will be limited to the slowest machines (try driving your ferrari in rush-hour traffic)

Puzzled as to the OS, as there isnt a "small business" version of XP.

There is Home and Professional. There is Office Small Business edition but thats not an OS, its Word/Excel etc.

XP has built in firewall (incoming only) is this active?
Are the 98 machines running IPX or TCP?
Make sure they are all the same? Just because IPX was default doesnt mean you have to use it or keep it.

Are you getting a lot of collisions (check the LED on the hub?)
godfather (25)
57513 2002-06-28 01:53:00 >I bought 3 brand new (fast as hell)
details please. fast as hell is about as usefull as tits on a bull ;-)

>the other two are used by 'ordinary' Microsoft Word users.
what version of word is on the older pc's?
what version is on the new pc's?

what is the hardware specs of old machines and the new machines?
tweak'e (174)
57514 2002-06-28 01:54:00 thanks for persevering with this I appreciate it

sorry, microsoft seems to use so many different names for things i have trouble remembering. We're running Office XP small business, and the operating system xp is professional edition as you say - which I bought after much enquiring because I was told there was (amongst other things) a limit on how many machines could be networked together under xp home.

i am using a hub not a switch, and there is an led on the hub for each connection indicating speed (separate from traffic led) and the manual says if the light is on the speed is 100 mhz and if off the speed is 10mhz

the server and 2 xp machines have the 100mhz led on, and the other older machines the led is off

all the machines are using ipx because xp insists on none xp machines having a little program from the xp disk run on them which installs and converts the network on those non xp machines to run on ipx (not that it bothers to tell you that, you just find that out when you subsequently have a peek at network setup on the machine you have run the program on)

if you don't run the xp setup disk on the non xp machines the non xp machines don't 'see' the xp machines - if you try and get the xp machines to change to other protocols (like netbios) other problems seem to arise so I settled for ipx on all, and apart from the 'slowness' problem it all appears to work fine

I'll check the firewall setting next time I'm there - good point. The 'slow' xp machines are not connecting to the internet, but are you saying that the firewall checks internal ipx network traffic anyway?

Not sure what you mean by collisions, the lights on the hub leds seem to flash quite a bit - I thought it just indicated traffic moving or not - is it something else?

thanks
gaxxa (666)
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