slow cable access

[mike_ny1974]

hello everyone.
i have a cable modem connection for ISP. i am also using a D-Link personal home router. model DI-704. i had one PC hooked up to the router and had no problems whatsoever. i added a second computer to the router. once i added the second computer, web access on the first computer is very very slow. almost to a crawl.
the second computer is having no problems communicating with the internet. the second computer is about 100 feet of cable away from teh router. the first one is about 5 feet of cable.
first computer has a 3com 3c905b and is using win2k server.
second computer has a d link 730 and is using win98.
when i disconnect the cable from the 2nd computer at teh router. it works, fine.
what do i do? im goign insane.
thanks for your help.

[BipolarBill]

Be sure that one of the cables is not a crossover cable first. It needs to be a patch cable. Try another port for both PCs too. If you have an Uplink port, do not use it!

Go here for cable tweaks:

www.speedguide.net

[mike_ny1974]

the cable on the first PC is just a normal 5 foot patch cable. its straight thru. not a cross over.
i tried every different combination of the 4 ports i have on my router. still no luck. i did avoid using the uplink port.
maybe this is where the problem lies. the second PC that i added had a very weird cable set up. im using CAT 5 from the router to a jack. thatsa about 10 or 15 feet. then im using 6pair underground wire for about 60 or so feet. underground. when it enters the next building, there is another jack with CAT5 attached at that end to the PC.
do you think that has anything to do with it?

[BipolarBill]

Possibly. The wires in the walls and ground may have been "crossed". Try this experiment - use the uplink port for that connection. The uplink port is crossed over and will negate another crossover.

[Rainsford1]

Hi Mike,

I hope I'm not treading ground already covered here, but have you configured the router as a DHCP server w/ NAT? If not, this could be your problem.

I've looked at D-Link's website, and the router you've got seems to be fairly highspeed and should not begiving you any problems with perfromance degradation.

If you could let us know what entries have been made to your router it might help in sorting this out.

:)

[mike_ny1974]

i am using the router as DHCP. i dont konw if its using NAT or not. maybe you could tell me how to check. in the router config, i set the DHCP, to always give the w2k PC the same address based on the MAC of the NIC card. and i did the same for the second PC. so i guess its really not DHCP. i am running an FTP server, and also using terminal servics on teh w2k box. so i set those specific ports to automatically forward to the w2k box.
hope that helps
thanks for all your help guys.

[BipolarBill]

Port-forwarding to one PC will "starve" the other of common services (HTTP, FTP). You're better off using DMZ Host for the server and a decent software firewall.

[mike_ny1974]

so basically, the port fowarding is the problem?
it doesnt make sense. when i had the once PC set up. with port forwarding set up on the router, i had no problems. and when i attached the 2nd cmoputer, the problems were occuring on the 1st pc with the port forwarding. if port fowarding is going to "starve" other services, shouldnt it be happening on the 2nd PC?

[BipolarBill]

You're right - it doesn't make sense. Humor me though. Disable PF and try it. Also check the DHCP status on the router to be sure that the IPs haven't flipped.

[Rainsford1]

Sorry about the delay, but if you bear w/ me for a few I'm downloading the manual for your router now.

[BipolarBill]

Boy that Rainman is a nice guy! :)

[mike_ny1974]

yea Rainsford1 is the man.
i upgraded the firmware today, and i will try turning off the port forwarding tonite. im not home so ill give it a shot tonite.
im also going to try the uplink calbe thing.
thanks guys. ill report tomorow.

[Rainsford1]

Time for another apology here, I've got to head out so I'm not going to be able to look into this for you for the rest of the day. If it's still a problem tonight I'll see what I can find for you.

[Rainsford1]

Hey there Mike, sorry for dropping off like that yesterday but one of our client's had a little crisis.

Anyway, back to the problem at hand. I've read through the user manual and after rereading your post, no obvious issues seem to pop up. In the way of testing things however, and as BipolarBill mentioned, I would turn off port forwarding. In addition to this however, I would also remove the static IP assignments that you've entered, and make both of the clients get IP addresses via DHCP exclusively.

Once that is done, try connecting both to the web and check their performance. If agreeable, then I would change the Web/FTP server's IP address back to static, and run that test again. If this also is agreeable, then I would try re-enabling port forwarding, and check one last time.

If nothing else, this process should allow you to isolate where exactly the problem lies. HTH:p