Pierre wrote:
> "DanR" <dhr22@sorrynospm.com> wrote in message
> news:QVoUe.3268$6e1.1632@newssvr14.news.prodigy.co m...
>> Question about typical company network. We are looking at going gigabit
>> mainly because of a perceived network slowdown in the past 6 months or so.
>> But... some of use are not sure that the 100 Mb T1 current network is really
>> the fault. Question is: We have some really speedy computers on the network
>> and some not so speedy. Can slow clock speed computers drag down the entire
>> network? We have B / G Wi-Fi on both sides of the firewall. Can they drag
>> down overall speed of the network? We have hubs / switches that feed other
>> hubs / switches. How bad a practice is that?
>> There are about 50 wired drops around the building and around 8 wi-fi hot
>> spots. Previous IT guy set the wi-fi up with all different SSIDs. We don't
>> care about lap top roaming so maybe that's not a big deal. Or not?
>> Any suggestions?
>>
> If you are running from the server through one switch and using one output
> to feed another switch at 100 Mb, then taking the outputs of the second
> switch to feed a number of workstations, then all those workstations must
> share the single 100Mb feed from the first switch. Not good practice for
> maintaining good throughput and response.
>
> Just watching the "blinking lights" on the switches can give you some idea
> of loading and in what directions the load is coming from.
>
> Either you need to redistribute the workstation load more evenly or better,
> take the network to gigabit so that the data moves a bit faster. Also be on
> the lookout for a bad or "garbaging" NIC. Some varieties can soft fail

What are the symptoms of a bad or "garbaging" NIC? Would it be constant traffic
even when the user is not doing anything network related? Would "watching the
"blinking lights" help find one of these NICs? Would a managed switch make a
"garbaging" NIC a non issue?

> slowly and really start dragging a network down. Using managed switches
> rather than unmanaged and setting them up properly usually makes a
> significant difference.
>
> You may also wish to look at adding a second (and third or fourth) ethernet
> port on your server and feeding a switch directly rather than using a point
> of an existing earlier switch. Four ethernet ports on the server, each
> feeding a single 16 port switch and then directly to the clients will share
> out the load significantly but be absolutely sure you use good NICs such as
> the genuine Intel Pro series rather than many of the cheap aftermarket types
> that generally cannot stand very high consistent traffic error free.
>
> Remember also the cascading guidelines for switches, 10Mb - 3 cascaded,
> 100Mb - 2 cascaded, gigabit - no cascading.
>
> Peter