Networks are weird
A query for the networking geeks in the audience…
- Box A runs Windows XP, it’s an Athlon 2000XP.
- Box B runs Debian Sarge, It’s an Athlon 1200XP.
- Box C runs Debian Stable, It’s a Celeron 300mhz.
Downloading a file from a HTTP server with Box A takes $time
Downloading the same file with Box B or C (Or similerly sized files from the same server, so no caching) takes $time/3
Downloading said amount of data from the same server with Box A running though a squid cache server on either B or C also takes $time/3
All are plugged into the same hub, behind the same router, on the same ASDL.
Why? And how can I fix this? (Apart from installing Linux on A, which is mostly a games box ATM, and dual boots to Gentoo anyway)
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Senji:
My first thought is that the network cards in these machines have different fragmentation properties – can you try swapping two network cards?
Castellan:
I have just got adsl and I have been noticing a similar problem although my factor of speed reduction is more 10 than 3. I think we both use the same firewall (ipcop?) but strangely I am fairly sure this isn’t the cause of the problem. IE5 and 6 on W98 clients have no problem, nor does a DedRat file server controlled via Webmin, but my Moz1.5 on Win2K intermittently suffers this speed drop. Of course I am not a networking geek and so I am not really being much help but if I get any warmer I’ll email you.
Pingter:
Hmm, are you sure this isn’t a question from PuzzleDonkey? :-)
Have you tried switching the drives between machines to see… what happens.
Fear my debugging technique.